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STUDIES 

IN 

RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



STUDIES 



IN 



RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 




ERNEST RENAN. 

ii 



NEW YORK : 
SCRIBNER AND WELFORD. 
1887. 



3U1 



3 

< 



CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

author's preface - - - - - I • 

EXPERIMENTAL METHOD APPLIED TO RELIGION - 23 
I -PAGANISM - - - - - " 33 

COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY - - - - 49 

FIRST WORKS ON BUDDHISM - - "57 

NEW WORKS ON BUDDHISM - - - - 1 38 

• THE TRANSLATIONS OF THE BIBLE - - - 1 68 

THE TEAZIEHS OF PERSIA - - - - 1 83 

JOACHIM DI FLOR AND THE ETERNAL GOSPEL - 2IO 

FRANCIS OF ASSIST ----- 305 
A MONASTIC IDYL OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY, - 330 
RELIGIOUS ART - - - - -367 



vi CONTENTS. 

the congregatione ' de auxiliis 
a word upon Galileo's trial 
port-royal - . - 

SPINOZA 



NEW STUDIES 

OF 

RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



AUTHOR' S PREFACE. 

Twenty-seven years ago I published, under the 
title of ' Studies of Religious History,' a series of 
essays relating to the various creeds of antiquity, 
of the Middle Ages and of the East. The following 
are essays which may be considered as a sequel 
to those which were favourably received in 1857. 
In the present work, I but incidentally dwell 
upon Greek and Latin antiquity ; to compensate 
for which I submit a lengthy work upon Buddhism, 
and some minute discussions relative to mediaeval 
questions. 

My work on Buddhism was composed in the 
latter months of the life of Eugene Burnouf. It 
was intended for the Revue des deux Mondes, 
and was indeed the first contribution I sent to 

1 



2 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



that review. M. Buloz, of all men the least 
Buddhistic, praised me regarding some accessories ; 
but, respecting the body of the work, declined to 
believe the truth of the assertions it contained. 
To him, a real Buddhist in flesh and blood ap- 
peared quite inadmissible. In the face of all the 
proofs I adduced in support of my thesis, he 
obstinately replied : c It is impossible that people 
could be so stupid.' Burnouf died, and my essay 
remained in my desk. I now bring it to light 
because I consider that the absence of Buddhism 
left a gap in my studies of religious history. To 
the analysis of Burnoufs views, I have added the 
splendid results more recently achieved by some 
young and indefatigable searchers, particularly 
M. Senart. 

Nearly all the essays in this volume that have 
to do with the Middle Ages relate to the extra- 
ordinary movement of religious reform which fills 
the thirteenth century, and, under the pressure 
of official orthodoxy, disappears in the fourteenth 
or fifteenth. The centre of the revolutionary 
agitation was the order of St. Francis; but the 
history of the Franciscan sect is unintelligible, if 
one does not, beforehand, form an idea of Joachim 
di Flor, since Joachim, though not the creation 
of the excited imagination of the Franciscans, as 
M. Preger has lately maintained, became for them 
a subject of legends, a precursor for the most part 
apocryphal. I have again taken up the work I 
published in 1866 on this point of criticism, and 



AUTHORS PREFACE. 



3 



have completed it with the help of all that within 
the last few years has appeared on the subject. 

The article on Francis of Assisi sums up all 
my ideas upon a subject which I should have been 
delighted to treat at greater length. This essay 
appeared in the midst of the controversies raised 
by my ' Life of Jesus,' and I meant it as an 
answer to certain objections. It was welcomed 
by some ; at least, it earned for me a warrant of 
indulgence which, I hope, will some day be 
reckoned in my behalf, like the favours of the 
Portiuncula. A Capuchin friar, who often talked 

about me to the Princess , having read the 

article in the Debats, said to her : 1 He wrote about 
Jesus otherwise than he should have done ; but 
he has spoken well of St. Francis. St. Francis 
will save him.' In fact, I have always felt great 
devotion for Francis of Assisi, whom, of all 
men after Jesus, I regard as possessing the 
most purely natural religion. An eminent critic, 
M. Scherer, often wondered at my liking for that 
mendicant, a liking so thoroughly opposed to 
sound ideas of political economy. The reason of 
it is that in history, as in real life, sympathies 
proceed a great deal more from community of 
defects than from that of merits. The (Sfects 
that would soon have ruined the work of Francis 
of Assisi, if, by giving it a wrong direction, the 
universal Church had not endowed it with con- 
sistency and durability, are really the same that 
have limited my own action upon my contempora- 

i — 2 



4 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



ries to amusing them for the moment. In order to 
produce anything lasting, an idealist must have 
an intriguer for alter ego. I never had a brother 
Elias. To have succeeded in the temporal world 
I must have been governed by some very selfish 
force that would have worked me to its advantage. 
Like the patriarch of Assisi, I have lived in this 
world without any serious interest in it ; as a mere 
tenant, if I may say so. Without having possessed 
anything of our own, we both found ourselves 
wealthy. God gave us the usufruct of the universe, 
and we have been contented to enjoy without pos- 
session. Such dispositions will only develop into, 
doubtful conservatives and very harmless revolu- 
tionaries. The abuses which offend me, for in- 
stance, are rather those which prevent enjoyment 
than those which affect property. A barrier for- 
bidding access to some beautiful valley, a stream 
polluted for the benefit of some factory, a wall 
marking as private property some spot or other 
of God's unlimited realm, all which turns the 
beautiful into individual estate, which makes truth 
a personal possession, all this is repugnant to me, 
for it all means diminishing the general happiness. 
The common pastures, which form the ' domain 
of the evangelical poor,' are thereby reduced. Yet, 
it is evident that those who believe there are here 
below 'abiding cities,' will regard as dangerous 
this way of imitating the birds of the air. Be- 
nighted admirers of the Sermon on the Mount, 
we ask no civic reward for having been nourished 



AUTHORS PREFACE. 



5 



on a chimera. Not only have we done no service 
to the cause of order, but, perchance, many a 
rebel, in his revolt against that established order, 
has found support in our views. We have in 
nowise contributed to consolidate anybody's pro- 
perty ; we are, therefore, in nowise entitled to the 
gratitude of the citizen of the future. 

Religious history grows indeed strange blossoms, 
and its heroes are mostly in poor health. The 
study of Christine of Stommeln offers an interesting 
case of mystic pathology, as well as a touching 
love-story. I believe that if some young student 
from the ' Ecole des Chartes ' made up his mind 
to extract the love-letters contained in the ' Bol- 
landists,' revise the text, and hit upon the exact 
rendering, he might make an exceedingly agreeable 
little work. 

The saints of Port Royal were not haunted by 
the hallucinations that distracted the poor visionary 
of the Middle Ages. They were correct in their 
convulsions ; reasonable in their hysterics. In 
this volume will be found three Studies which I 
have dedicated to them. As a sequel, I have 
added the speech I was called upon to deliver at 
the Hague, at the time of the second centenary of 
the death of Spinoza. In my opinion, Spinoza 
belongs a great deal more to religious than to 
philosophical history. He has his own church 
rather than his own school— a church full of 
crude, glaring light, like all the structures of the 
sixteenth century — cold because it has too many 



6 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



windows, melancholy because it is too transparent. 
Greece alone knew how to give cheerfulness, 
colour, warmth, and life to religion. 

For want of cheerfulness, theology sometimes 
provokes ridicule. The 'Provinciates ' are immortal 
comedies, whose only fault is that they succeeded 
too well ; it is the only instance in which comedy 
has been known to correct the defect which it 
attacked. To lighten the austerity of this volume, 
I have inserted in it a jeu d' esprit which, on leaving 
the Seminary of St. Sulpice, was inspired in me 
by recollections of scholastic theology. Its sub- 
ject is the famous C ongregationes de auxiliis divince 
gratia, which brought about the interminable con- 
troversies of Jansenism. In this little sketch, my 
object has been to point out one of the pecu- 
liarities of Romish theology, viz., the grotesque 
association of pretensions to infallibility with the 
most subtle quibbles. Infallibility ought, at least, 
not to admit of disputes. Is there, indeed, any- 
thing more ridiculous than wearing one's self out 
to discover the truth, when it has been agreed 
beforehand that whatever one decides must be 
true ? 

The essay at the beginning of this book was 
composed under circumstances with which I 
acquaint my friends, whenever I wish to provoke a 
smile, and which I certainly recollect with pleasure, 
since through them I, for one day, became the 
collaborator of MM. Taine, Max Miiller, and 
Emerson . I wrote it, persuaded that no one in 



A UTHOR S PRE FA CE. 



7 



France would ever read it. M. Taine, I believe, 
did the same ; the result was a volume which had 
a brisker sale than the majority of those which 
are written for a public secured in advance. The 
movements of the Mahdi have since strengthened 
me in the idea that in Asia and Africa religious 
experiments of the highest interest could easily be 
made with a sum not exceeding twenty or thirty 
millions of francs. 

In publishing, after the lapse of a quarter of a 
century, this continuation of my first ' Studies,' I 
.am happy to notice considerable progress in the 
public mind. Enlightened opinion has still pre- 
served the eagerness with which it then followed 
those researches ; but it now displays more mode- 
ration and more maturity. The maledictions 
which my first essays drew down would not now 
be understood. Some positions for which I was 
anathematized, at the beginning of my career, are 
now adopted by writers who claim to remain 
Catholic. Time is the necessary collaborator of 
reason. The main point is to know how to wait. 
In reproducing in this work a few pages which, 
years ago, I wrote about Galileo, my object has 
been to make this understood. Galileo was, as 
regards truth, the greatest man that ever lived ; 
he was courageous : yet he was not a hero, and 
he was right not to be one. People sometimes 
wonder why Galileo showed weakness, why he 
consented to retract as erroneous propositions 
which he knew to be true. It was that he per- 



8 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



ceived his death would in nowise serve to further 
the demonstration of those certainties. Martyr- 
dom is only suffered when we wish to prove that 
about which we are uncertain. Had the systems 
in support of which poor Giordano Bruno suffered 
himself to be burnt in the Campo di Flora been 
as undeniable as those of Galileo, he, most likely, 
would not have deemed it necessary to assert 
them at the cost of his life. The theorems of 
Archimedes would not have gained anything by 
Archimedes' death. When we hold the truth, 
further exertions are useless. Truth does not 
require to be proclaimed ; its exposition is suf- 
ficient. 

Thus methods which, thirty years ago, all 
formalists conspired to denounce as idle and dan- 
gerous, have now become laws for all sound 
minds. That in the world accessible to man's 
experience no supernatural fact takes place, is a 
truth which imposes itself more and more on the 
conscience of mankind. Men nowadays pray less 
and less,* for they know that no prayer was ever 
effective. Evidence proves nothing in a question 
of this sort. If ever there were a deity whose 
power was established by documents apparently 
irrefutable, it was the goddess Rabbat Tanit, of 
Carthage. Nearly three thousand stelaet bearing 

* I take the word * prayer ' in the ordinary acceptation of 
request offered to Heaven with some special aim, not in the 
meaning of meditation, of inward dwelling on the abstract 
principles of duty. 

f Monolithic slabs or columns used in ancient times as 
memorials. — Translator's Note. 



AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 



9 



witness to vows made to that goddess have been 
excavated — they are now for the most part pre- 
served in the National Library of Paris ; each and 
all state that Rabbat Tanit ' heard the prayers ' 
addressed to her. These three thousand witnesses 
to a prayer having secured its object certainly 
deceived themselves. For, indeed, Rabbat Tanit, 
being a false deity, never could grant anyone's 
prayer. The efficacy of quinine is proved because, 
in numberless cases, quinine or its substitutes 
have modified the course of a fever. Did ever 
prayer secure such proofs ? Certainly not. Yet 
the fact is easy to test, for millions of prayers are 
daily offered to. Heaven. 

How will the future reconcile these truths, 
already established, with the need man feels of 
bowing before an Ideal Superior ? It is difficult to 
say ; yet in such matters what we have to do is 
evident, though the theory is obscure. From 
liberty alone proceeds the practice of religion. 
Religion must eventually become entirely free ; 
that is, it must be placed beyond the interference 
of the State, and be as individual a thing as litera- 
ture, art, or taste. If, perchance, under the pre- 
text of religion, offences should be committed 
against common rights, laws exist to punish them. 
If there were no more laws to govern religious 
matters than there now are to restrict the dress, 
studies, or private amusements of citizens, that 
would be perfection. A State neutral as regards 
religion is the only one that will never be brought 
to play the part of persecutor. 



io NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



Though such a state of things be very remote 
from us, that is no reason why we should not 
aspire to it ; for, in human pursuits, it is equally 
wrong to have no ideal, and to believe one's ideal 
susceptible of immediate attainment. As a matter 
of fact, the ideal of liberty of which we nOw speak 
is more than half realized in France, since with 
us no religion is imposed upon citizens ; a French- 
man may enjoy all civic and political rights with- 
out belonging to this or that sect, without even 
professing any religious belief. 

No doubt a further step remains to be made. 
It would consist in putting an end to the Con- 
cordat and striking out from the general budget 
all grants in aid of particular forms of worship. 
This reform, than which nothing could be more 
logical, will certainly work itself out ; for, despite 
many contrary signs, I feel convinced that the 
future of Europe belongs to liberty. The State, 
being, according to modern conceptions, a simple 
guarantee of order for the exercise of individual 
activity, is no more justified in keeping up Con- 
cordats with religions, than with romanticism, or 
realism, or classicism, or any other opinion that 
may lawfully be held or not held. But the aban- 
donment of Concordats would imply that we 
already had a good law of association, regulating 
the foundation and the legal existence of unions 
of persons for moral purposes. And such a law is 
not only wanting, but the Democratic party does 
not seem at all disposed to vote for it. It is in 



AUTHORS PREFACE. 



ii 



England or in the most liberal States of Northern 
America that we should seek for the type of such 
a law. Neither the anti-Clerical Democrats nor 
the Catholic party will hear of such a solution. 
The programme of the anti-Clerical party is the 
suppression of the privileges of the clergy, without, 
in exchange, granting them the liberty of organiz- 
ing themselves in their own way. The Catholic 
party claims all the privileges of the Napoleonic 
Concordat, without accepting any of its duties. 
It wants to be free, as in America, and official, as 
it always used to be in France. One cannot, at 
the same time, enjoy the benefit of an exceptional 
statute and of the common law. If liberty of asso- 
ciation were established in France to-morrow, it 
should be stipulated that the provisions of such 
law would not apply to any corporation which had 
formed special Concordats with the State, or to 
any college which conferred upon its members 
even the appearance of State functionaries. Upon 
their renouncing the benefits of their Concordats 
religious creeds should enjoy the common law. 
With time they would be brought to understand 
that liberty for all is also the best and the safest 
of charters. 

Everything considered, our actual state of reli- 
gious legislation, however incoherent, grants suf- 
ficient liberty to all. Those who do not belong to 
the so-called creed of the majority have nothing to 
complain of. As for Catholicism, it is wrong, I 
think, to proclaim itself persecuted. The truth 



12 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



is, it is privileged ; and privileges must entail 
corresponding duties. Qui sentit commodum debet 
sentire et incommodum. The concordat ory organiza- 
tion admits only dioceses and parishes ; in such a 
state of things, religious congregations cannot 
exist save by the authorization of the State. This 
is illiberal ; this is quite contrary to liberty, as we 
understand it, and as we wish it. We desire a 
legislation allowing everybody to dress, to lodge, 
and to live as he thinks fit. But the first step 
in that direction would be to abandon the Con- 
cordat, since the Concordat is itself the negation 
of the theory of the State, understood as a pro- 
tector of liberties and a stranger to all religious 
or literary opinions. The ties which bind Catho- 
licism are, in reality, the ties of its privileges — 
ties which eighty years ago it was so delighted 
to form, and which to-day it is not at all anxious 
to sever. 

The present state of our religious legislation is 
therefore very tolerable, and the times we live in 
not being suited for great reforms, we must not 
urge fundamental changes, which might carry with 
them serious inconvenience. For the present, a 
modification of details will be sufficient. In our 
actual legal system, liberal principles appear to 
me to be seriously infringed only as regards 
educational obligations. The State has a right 
to teach in every branch, on condition that no 
one should be compelled to follow its teaching. 
Some of the provisions actually in force respecting 



AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 



13 



examinations to be undergone by children who 
do not attend public schools may become highly 
vexatious. The obligation imposed upon the father 
to give elementary instruction to his children does 
not necessitate preventive measures. It is also 
the father's duty to give his children proper and 
sufficient nourishment, yet no surveillance over 
him ascertains how he fulfils that duty. 

A comparison will explain my meaning. Every 
commune possesses its public fountain, where 
water can be had gratis. No one, however, is 
bound to avail himself of the advantage thus 
offered. Any of the inhabitants would even be 
perfectly free to say : ' The water from the public 
fountain is very injurious ; come and take water 
from my well ;' and his fellow-citizens would have 
a right to accept his invitation. But if the owner 
of the well were afterwards to say : ' You see now, 
everybody prefers the water of my well ; do away 
with the public fountain, and give me the money 
that is spent in keeping it up,' he should be 
plainly told : ' No ; public institutions must not 
impede individual efforts, but they must not be 
dependent upon private will or action.' 

The best guarantee of liberty is the general 
progress of enlightenment. If we consider the 
whole of Europe, such progress is indubitably 
real. We may yet see strong religious reactions ; 
we shall never see a return to fanaticism. Fana- 
ticism is only possible to the faith of the masses. 
Such faith is much weakened, and it is improbable 



i 4 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



that, even in the face of great social disasters, it 
will ever be rekindled to any appreciable extent. 
Let us suppose the most fearful misfortunes ; it 
would even then be hard to persuade the people 
that such misfortunes were caused by persons who 
did not go to mass, and that they should therefore 
be attacked. Supernatural beliefs will slowly die 
out, undermined by primary instruction and by 
the predominance of scientific over literary educa- 
tion. These influences are not the result of any 
political regime, of true or false theories spread 
abroad by publicists ; they are the consequence of 
the progress of modern societies towards a state 
wherein the individual, in order to live, requires a 
certain positive instruction. Of yore the peasant, 
unable to read, write, or calculate, still lived, pro- 
tected by patronage and by a kind of patriarchal 
spirit, generally diffused. Nowadays the struggle 
for life dooms to starvation any individual placed 
in such conditions. Similarly, the man who 
has gone through his Greek and Latin studies, 
but has neglected geography, the elements of 
science, modern languages, will find himself not 
so well prepared for the struggle of life as one 
whose education has been more modern, not so 
refined, perhaps, yet more practical. Classical 
education will ensure superiority only to those 
who wish to write ; that is, to a very limited 
number. 

But the ordinary and common education, which 
will become that of the masses, will be less con- 



AUTHORS PREFACE. 



15 



servative of spiritual belief than the old complacent 
classicism, which cared little whether a sentence 
was true or not, so long as it was well turned. 
Men who have not been to the university at all 
throw off supernatural notions more readily than 
those who have had an incomplete literary educa- 
tion ; for the latter have been brought up to admire 
exclusively the seventeenth century, and, in most 
cases, their masters have not had sufficient strength 
of mind to point out the essential distinction be- 
tween the excellent type of prose style created by 
the seventeenth century and the intellectual child- 
ishness too often displayed in the literary produc- 
tions of that period. A man is valued now in 
proportion to what he knows ; and the best 
writers of the seventeenth century knew very little, 
and can teach us scarcely- anything. Historical 
sciences were then hardly born ; the great natural 
sciences existed only in the brain of some rare 
genius. A schoolboy of to-day, with his text- 
book, knows a great deal more than Bossuet re- 
specting a crowd of topics of the first importance. 
Our new system of education will make genera- 
tions not so cultured, perhaps, but more en- 
lightened than those who owe their habit of mind 
to a classical education. It is the fault of classical 
education which has failed to lead its students to 
put on the toga virilis in earnest, and assert their 
intellectual majority by dethroning literature and 
substituting for it the positive culture of the 
human mind. In such conditions, superstition 



1 6 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



will still no doubt dispose of very great forces ; 
but it will then be little more than a social incon- 
venience. Fanaticism, which three centuries ago 
was able to overwhelm a great country like Spain, 
is now but a vanquished Typhon, powerless to do 
harm. 

We must be prepared to consider calmly the 
events which, a few years hence, will brutally 
assail our closing century. The aim of human 
life will ever be holy. If it is true that henceforth 
intellectual culture, even in its humblest degree, 
will exclude supernatural belief, it is equally true 
that the highest culture will never uproot religion 
understood in its loftiest meaning. Man is not 
dependent upon some capricious master, who 
makes him live, die, prosper, or suffer indifferently. 
But he is dependent on the whole universe, which 
has an aim, and which makes everything converge 
towards that aim. Man is a subordinate being ; 
whatever he may do, he worships, he serves. To 
contribute readily and joyfully to the supreme 
good, is virtue. To serve ungracefully, to imitate 
indifferent soldiers who, though they go into 
action like the rest, are constantly grumbling 
against their chiefs, is evil. It might be proved 
that the worst of men co-operates with provi- 
dential views by his unconscious action more than 
he thwarts them by his revolt and his misdeeds. 

Indeed, the sermon of St. Francis of Assisi to 
the birds is the resume of all good theology : 
' Swallows, my little sisters, you are under very 



A UTHORS PRE FA CE. 



17 



great obligations to God your Maker, and at all 
times you should praise Him, because He has given 
you freedom to fly everywhere, and because He 
has provided you with a double and treble gar- 
ment, and chiefly because of the element of air to 
which He has destined you. You neither sow nor 
reap ; yet God feeds you, and He has made the 
streams and the fountains to slake your thirst ; 
He gave you the mountains and the valleys as 
a shelter, and the high trees in which to build 
your nests ; and although you know neither how 
to spin nor how to sow, God has furnished you 
with garments for yourselves and for your young 
ones ; whereby we see how much your Maker 
loves you. Therefore beware, my little sisters, of 
the sin of ingratitude, and devote yourselves for 
ever to praising God. . .' Here is the truth. 
The world is a vast choir, wherein each of us has 
a part to sustain. Religion consists for everyone 
of us in singing while we do our work, in praising 
God from morning to night by cheerfulness, good 
humour, and patience. 

As St. Francis of Assisi very truly remarked, 
the bird is in that respect favourably situated, 
for singing is natural to it, and it is free from 
the cares of a complicated existence. Yet we 
may all in various degrees imitate it for some part 
of our time. First of all, women, to raise them- 
selves to pure worship, have but to consult their 
inner selves, to listen to the inward voice of their 
sex, that sex being in itself a kind of merciful pro- 



18 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



fession, an everlasting act of piety. Woman is 
religious by simply observing the proprieties of 
her state. The robe and girdle of women are the 
insignia of an order ; they are garments of holi- 
ness. Man has also his ejaculatory, manly prayer, 
which, being raised from the hottest of the fray 
of life, pierces heaven with short, abrupt, and un- 
couth accents. We pray as soon as we cease to 
be selfish ; and man is not always selfish. If he 
sometimes grumbles at Providence, it is because 
he does not think it sufficiently just. His very 
reproach is often an act of faith ; his railings 
at any rate are more agreeable to the Eternal 
than the hypocritical homage of a bigot. Youth 
is fiery; it darts diamond-pointed arrows, like 
that of the seraph who pierced St. Theresa's heart. 
Even at the age when we mark in white the days 
on which we do not suffer, there is the dream (sad 
way of worshipping for want of any other) ; there 
are old remnants of ardour, extinguished fires 
still warm, some secret belief that even the depth 
of night, as recent explorers have ascertained re- 
garding the depths of the ocean, is perhaps not 
without warmth and life. 

Everything considered, there are few situations 
in the vast field of existence, on the surface of this 
big iron ball which is called the planet Earth, 
wherein the balance of debit and credit does 
not leave a little surplus of happiness. And this 
at a period of the world's history when God, if He 
were autocratic, would be regarded, when judged 



AUTHORS PREFACE. 



19 



by His government, as a Sovereign of limited in- 
telligence and little justice. How much easier 
will hearty adherence, homage, and praise become 
when reason more widely rules the world, when, 
evil being more thoroughly vanquished, good be- 
comes stronger ; when the number of beings for 
whom life is a baneful gift grows insignificant ! 

Everybody will then, from the bottom of his 
heart, follow the solitary voice of the priest when 
he sings at mass : Vere dignum et justum est, cequum 
et salutare nos tibi semper et ubique gratias agere. 
Life for everyone, as for the birds of St. Francis 
of Assisi, will overflow with love and gratitude. 
Melancholy and saddening dogmas will not find 
any more believers. The joy of life, now so often 
obliterated by suffering, will break out everywhere. 
Nihilism, caused by the frightful mass of misery 
which centuries upon centuries of violence and 
harshness have engendered in the midst of our old 
continent, will disappear, or rather, will have no 
reason to exist. When the world becomes better, 
when gaiety reigns in Russia, as, in good times, it 
reigns in Burgundy or in Normandy, heroic pro- 
tests will be needless : men will no longer be 
atheists out of pity, destroyers out of a spirit of 
justice, criminals out of the love of good; the 
most fanatic adherents of nihilism will become the 
best soldiers of the ideal. May we see, before we 
die, some signs of the dawn of these happy days ! 

My joy, in the decline of my life, is to think 
that I have contributed something to this desirable 

2 — 2 



20 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



end. As I never wrote with the intention of 
causing this or that solution to prevail by the skill 
of an advocate, but rather always endeavoured 
loyally to provoke the free judgment of my reader 
by placing before him the elements of the ques- 
tion, I am confident that, even when mistaken, I 
have been useful. I have served my adversaries 
as well as my adherents, and if some day catholic 
studies rise again, it will, I hope, be acknowledged 
that I have contributed to that result. If, on 
the contrary, supernatural beliefs, consummating 
their divorce from rational methods, abandon 
more and more the field of the human mind, it 
may not have been useless that a serious and well- 
meaning inquiry has been made into an order of 
ideas which is perhaps doomed to lose its im- 
portance, but which was everything in the past. 
Indeed, religious history possesses this advantage, 
that it would still be necessary, even in case 
religion itself were to disappear. Though we dis- 
believe the mythology of the Homeric poems, we 
nevertheless are delighted to read them. The 
lessons of morality given by religious systems need 
but a simple transposition to become very sound 
philosophy ; or rather, is it not we who, from our 
own old stock of kindness and instinctive devotion, 
have lent to Christianity that excellent moral 
philosophy for which we give it credit ? Chris- 
tianity has made us, no doubt ; but we also have 
made Christianity. And so in endeavouring to 
gather, outside the particular dogmas of churches,. 



AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 



21 



the elements of rational piety, we are only re- 
assuming our property wherever we find it. 

Dogmas pass away, but piety is eternal. St. Nil 
adapted the maxims of Epictetus to the require- 
ments of Christian life. I sometimes form a 
similar though infinitely more modest project. 
Some persons having expressed to me their satis- 
faction with certain passages in my writings, and 
having found them capable of edifying and con- 
soling, I should like to extract such passages from 
the volumes in which they are contained, and to 
publish them in a little book, under the name of 
Pious Readings. I would divide them into fifty- 
two parts, for the fifty-two Sundays in the year. 
For each Sunday there would be an extract from 
the Gospel and from the Fathers of the Spiritual 
Life, a prayer and a spiritual bouquet, after the 
manner of St. Francis de Sales ; later on, illustra- 
tions might be added. But for certain omissions, 
a pious woman would not notice any difference 
between such a book and the Prayer-book which 
she carries with her to church. Perhaps she 
might end by, in some respects, preferring it. 

This would be a glorious victory. I will not 
deny that, of all books, the one of which I am 
most envious is the Mass-book. It certainly con- 
tains many sublime things. It must, however, be 
granted that its success has been singular and out 
of all proportion to its intrinsic value. To deserve 
to be thus lovingly read in the hours of meditation 
and solitude, to enjoy the incomparable privilege 



22 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



of receiving the unguarded looks of woman, at the 
time when she thinks herself alone in the presence 
of her Maker, the Prayer-book should be a web of 
the purest and costliest texture. But nothing of 
the kind. This little book, which so many ex- 
quisite beings clasp with a fervent hand, and at 
times press to their lips, contains weaknesses,, 
errors, things that maintain in woman the unfor- 
tunate habit of too often countenancing and 
accepting absurdities. Those lines, upon which 
so many charming eyes are fixed with a kind of 
loving intensity, are often almost meaningless. A 
great step would be made on the day when we. 
could place in woman's hand a devotional book 
less imperfect. Far from me be the thought of 
undertaking so delicate a work, in which one 
could succeed only by a combination of talent,, 
tenderness, and simplicity. I would only gather,, 
in a small- sized book, a few sincere thoughts, for 
the benefit of those for whom the old missal no 
longer suffices. My last ambition will be gratified, 
if I may hope to enter a church after my death, 
in the shape of a small i8mo. book, bound in 
black morocco, held between the long and slender 
fingers of an elegantly gloved hand. 



EXPERIMENTAL METHOD APPLIED TO 
RELIGION. 



An Oriental once said to me : c You Europeans 
will never fully understand religions, because you 
have never beheld the birth of any. As for us, 
we daily see some fresh one rising in our midst.' 
Indeed, all the leading religions of the world 
began in Asia. And this creative activity cannot 
be said to be exhausted. Even in our days, 
active sects have appeared in Asia. Bdbism, 
which is far from having achieved its destinies, is 
quite a recent phenomenon. We cannot abso- 
lutely deny that some great religious cyclones, 
kinds of Islamism, substituting a fresh Koran for 
that of Mahomet, may yet develop themselves in 
Asia. A man sufficiently conversant with Arabic 
to write in a fine style a book purporting to define 
Adam's relfgion, might expect to see it adopted 
by the tribes bordering on Syria. These tribes, 
whose ways and customs are still what they were 
twelve hundred years ago, might easily be per- 
suaded that Mahomet was a great man for having 
re-discovered the religion of Abraham, but that 
the religion of Adam is superior, since it applies 



24 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



to the whole of Adam's posterity — that is, to man- 
kind without exception. Fireworks let off on the 
mountain of Safet, and backed up by a few millions 
of francs, might easily be passed off as the appa- 
rition of the Messiah ; confirmatory evidence 
might be procured by a sufficiently generous treat- 
ment of the Jews of Tiberias and Safet. By a 
rapid coup de main, Mecca might be taken, and 
the Caaba dismantled and turned into a receptacle 
for refuse. 

In a word, with about fifty millions of francs, 
the equivalent of what, twelve hundred and fifty 
years ago, was achieved by Mahomet could be 
performed in our days ; Islam would thus be 
ruined, and a new religion founded, lasting as 
long as anything can last, which in the course 
of a hundred years would prove its divinity by 
miracles, martyrs, etc. it 

The experiment might, after all, be worth trying. 
Yes, a millionnaire willing to devote his fortune to 
the attempt might, without leaving Paris, have 
the pleasure of again arousing the religious en- 
thusiasm of Asia. He could, while dining at Bre- 
bant's with his friends, have telegrams forwarded 
to him respecting the exploits of his disciples, the 
heroic virtues displayed by them, the manner in 
which, in the course of the day, they had been 
tearing their own flesh with iron hooks. I would 
advise him to make his religion very difficult, that 
it might be all the more attractive ; very absurd, 
that it might the more readily be proclaimed of 



EXPERIMENTAL METHOD. 



?5 



divine origin. In the meantime, the impartial 
observer would have rich opportunities of laughing 
or weeping at the incurable foolishness of man- 
kind and its inexhaustible goodness. 

The new religion would not require great doc- 
trinal originality. A Persian friend of mine, who 
long resided in France, told me that, upon his 
return to Persia, he was, in spite of himself, on 
the point of becoming the founder of a new religion. 
A sort of legend preceded him, to which he vainly 
endeavoured to put a stop ; the rumour of the 
miracles he was alleged to have performed dis- 
tracted him to such an extent that he sometimes 
wondered whether it were not true. His motto 
was, ' Liberty, equality, fraternity ;' people to 
whom he communicated these three sacramental 
words fell on their knees struck with amazement. 
They use£ to say they were much more sublime 
than the Koran, and that the Divine Spirit alone 
was capable of revealing such lofty things. 

The cause of this peculiar superiority of Asia, 
in the matter of religious creations, is to be found 
in certain faculties with which Asia is richly gifted, 
and in which we ourselves are almost wholly 
wanting. Asia possesses enthusiasm, faith, an 
easily inflamed imagination, a boundless hope, 
audacious deceit, and, in extreme cases, when the 
holy cause is driven to bay, that imperturbable 
assurance which maintains an idea in spite of 
reality. Our races are infinitely more solid, 
serious, straightforward than those of Asia ; but, 



26 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



for these very reasons, they draw back horrified 
at what appears to them an imposture ; they are 
not light enough to be so lifted up ; they are 
deficient in that sort of double dealing which 
enables one to be, at the same time, fanatical and 
shrewd, cunning and credulous, impostor and 
dupe. We are too honest to persist in such wild 
undertakings : were we to try, we should fancy 
that people laughed at us. This reminds me of 
that good Vulfilaic of Treves, of whom Gregory of 
Tours* speaks ; it seems that he tried, on the 
banks of the Mosel, to imitate the Stylites of Syria, 
and live upon a column. The sensible bishops made 
him understand that such a feat could not be per- 
formed by a barbarian like him ; that, being but a 
peasant, he must not attempt to imitate the superior 
beings who succeeded at Antioch and Chalcis. 

To the already enumerated causes ^which, in 
the East, act as stimulants to new religions, we 
must also add the enthusiastic craving for martyr- 
dom. Religions are founded by martyrs. Indeed, 
Eastern races seem to find in tortures endured for 
their faith a sort of fierce delight. It is no rare 
occurrence in Asia to see people become believers 
in order to enjoy the supreme pleasure of 
suffering death for their creed. While the long 
rows of Babist martyrs slowly moved through the 
streets of Teheran like a living conflagration, * 

Hist. eccl. franc, v. 15. 

f The miserable creatures carried lighted tapers stuck in 
every part of their body. 



EXPERIMENTAL METHOD. 



27 



persons, till then strangers to the sect, would rush 
from their houses and join the dreadful procession 
of the unfortunate sufferers, so as to be tortured 
with them. 

This religious incapacity of Europe is the cause 
of the long torpor in which, for centuries, pagan 
mythologies vegetated. Next to nothing is known 
concerning the religions of the Iberic race ; yet to 
say that they were, morally, little productive, is 
probably not going too far. Indo-European 
mythology, introduced in the West by the Greeks, 
the Italians, the Celts, the Germans, brought about 
in Greece a marvellous development of the plastic 
arts ; but it was almost sterile in moral effect.. 
Gods formed from Nature by primitive intuitions, 
highly poetic, yet devoid of moral sense, could 
not exercise any beneficial influence upon morals. 

Hence arose the grotesque phenomenon of popu- 
lations kept in religious inferiority, when these 
same populations had already attained the highest 
degree of perfection in art, literature, science, 
politics, and theories of social organization.. 
Umbrian and Latin forms of worship never rose 
above a coarse formalism, which left no room for 
any tender feeling between the god and the man. 
Orphism and Mysteries were in Greece fruitless 
attempts to foster devotion and piety. 

Celtic Druidism more resembles the great re- 
ligious reforms that in the East bore the names of 
Moses, of Zoroaster, of Buddha ; still Druidism is 
not sufficient to give the religion of the Celts an}r 



.28 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



superiority over that of other Western nations. 
When, towards the middle of the second century, 
Christianity made its sudden appearance at Lyons, 
at Vienne, in the heart of Gaul, among the Segu- 
siani and the Allobroges, it was enthusiastically 
welcomed. All lofty and susceptible souls accepted 
it. Christianity appearing suddenly in the midst 
of this religious degradation, produced the same 
effect as civilization does when contrasted with 
barbarism. Our races, with natural piety, were 
soon charmed ; they adopted Christianity with 
all their spiritual strength ; that religion became, 
in some way, national to our ancestors ; so much 
so that, later on, they imagined it was the very 
offspring of their hearts, their treasure, their own 
personal creation. 

In so thinking, our ancestors did not absolutely 
deceive themselves. Certainly, Christianity is, in 
its origin, a pure Oriental production, an offshoot 
from Judaism ; that is, a purely Semitic religion. 
But in adopting it the West made it its own. 
St. Bernard, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Elizabeth 
of Thuringia, Joan of Arc, are much more closely 
related to our old ancestors of the Gallic or 
German forests than to David, Esther, or the 
authors of the Talmud. Our Breton or Irish 
saints, a St. Iltudus, a St. Cadoc, a St. Columba, 
bear a closer resemblance to the Druids than to 
St. Peter or St. Paul. In adopting Christianity 
European races imparted to it both their defects 
and their virtues. Their virtues were unusual 



EXPERIMENTAL METHOD. 



depth of feeling, extreme love of nature, overflow- 
ing imagination, which threw all the dyes of the 
rainbow, all the hues of our fresh fountains over 
the dry austerity of Palestinian Messianism. Their 
defect was superstition. The Celtic and Italian 
races were perhaps the most superstitious of all 
races. In becoming Christian, they did not cease 
to be superstitious. If ever there was a religion 
free from any coarse dross it was that of the first 
Christian generation. Transplanted to poly- 
theistic races, that religion, originally so pure, 
became veritable paganism. The Christians of the 
time of Gregory of Tours would have inspired St. 
Paul with horror. The famous letter of Pope 
Gregory the Great* elevated into a principle the 
concessions which must, of necessity, be made to 
barbarism : 

' When you meet our brother Augustine, tell 
him that, having long considered within myself the 
matter of the English, I think that it is not neces- 
sary to destroy their temples, but only the idols 
therein. You must provide yourselves with holy 
water, with which to sprinkle the pagan shrines ; 
you must erect altars upon which you will place 
relics ; for, if those temples are strongly built, they 
must pass from devil-worship to the service of 
the true God, in order that the nation, seeing we 
preserve the places to which it is accustomed, may 
the more readily come there. And because they 
have been accustomed to kill many oxen as sacri- 

* Epist. S. Greg., ix. 71. 



30 NEW STUDIES 0E RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



iices to devils, festivals should be organized on the 
occasion of the dedication of churches or of thecoma 
memoration of martyrs. Let them hang garlands 
round their temples turned into churches, and let 
them celebrate such festivals with modest repasts. 
Instead of immolating animals to demons, let 
them kill such animals and eat them, rendering 
thanks to God who feeds them, so that, by allow- 
ing them some material pleasures, they may the 
more easily be brought to share in spiritual joys ; 
for it is impossible to expect savage minds to give 
up all their customs at once. A mountain cannot 
be ascended with one leap ; it must be climbed 
step by step.' 

When we explore a remote spot of Normandy 
or Brittany, and stop before each of the shrines 
consecrated to local saints, and learn from the 
peasantry the special healing powers of each of 
such saints — this one protecting sheep against 
giddiness, that one setting the broken legs of 
donkeys, another curing children of hooping-cough 
— we remember legions of Gallic gods whose 
functions were quite similar, and we are led to 
believe that, among the lower orders, religion 
has undergone but little modification. But in 
higher classes the beneficial action of Christianity 
reveals itself. Christianity, Greece, and Rome, 
these are the three elements which, added to 
the qualities of our old Celtic and Germanic races, 
were the factors of European civilization. Without 
the Semitic element, introduced by Christianity, 



EXPERIMENTAL METHOD. 



3r 



something would have been wanting in the foun- 
dations of our intellectual and moral culture. 
Paganism would never have succeeded in in- 
stituting the Church, the congregation of the 
i faithful, the Sabbath, the Lord's Supper, preach- 
ing, the sacraments, the Bible. Above all, the 
Bible, that book so thoroughly Semitic, which has 
become the universal reading-book of the West, is 
the great sign which shows the religious privilege 
of the Hebrew people, and the providential decree 
which appointed the green and fresh pastures of 
the West to be, as regards religion, the appanage 
of the children of Shem. 

By modifying the ideas of all cultured people 
respecting the supernatural, that is, respecting the 
manner in which the ideal shows itself in human 
things, the development of criticism and of the 
natural sciences has altered the very essence of 
religion. The pagan, believing in numerous 
powers who could be worshipped and influenced 
by means of formulae and ceremonies strictly 
carried out ; the Jew and the Christian, believing 
in one sole Monarch of the universe, who is sup- 
posed to rule all by decrees formed for some pre- 
determined end, equally disagree with a philosophy 
the first principle of which is that God is Reason, 
and, as Malebranche says, never acts in accord- 
ance with special designs. Henceforward religion 
seeks refuge in the heart. It has become poetry 
and sentiment. And, while dogmas may divide, 
sentiment reunites. God preserve us from re- 



32 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



pudiating the beautiful name of Christian, which 
places us in communion with Jesus and the ideal 
of the Gospel, with the Church and all the 
treasures of holiness it has produced. But neither 
let us disown our naturalistic past. Like that old 
Frisian king who, having already one foot in the 
baptismal font, drew it back when the missionary 
told him that in Paradise he would not meet his 
noble ancestors, the Frisian kings,* we will not 
have any more anathema, condemnation, ex- 
clusive symbols. In this we are true disciples of 
Jesus. Jesus was never more divinely a prophet 
than at Naplouse,t when He said to the woman of 
Samaria, ' Believe Me, woman, the time will come 
when men will no longer worship on this moun- 
tain, nor at Jerusalem, but when true worshippers 
will worship in spirit and in truth.' 

° Acta SS. Ord. S. Bened., iii. 361. 

f Or Sichem, a town of Syria, built on the ruins of the 
Neapolis of the Greeks ; famous in the Scriptures as the 
capital of the kingdom of Samaria.— Translator's Note. 



PAGANISM. 



M. Alfred Maury,* already known by excellent 
works wherein profound erudition is illuminated 
by sound criticism, has set himself the task of 
writing a complete history of the religions generally 
grouped under the name of Paganism. Having 
helped M. Guigniaut in the vast collection of 
mythology which that learned Academician gave 
to France, M. Maury was better fitted than any- 
one for a work which might have daunted courage 
less than his. The volume he has just published 
contains, epoch by epoch, pictures of the religious 
revolutions of Greece, from primitive times to 
those of Alexander. It fulfils all the hopes con- 
ceived by the friends of serious study. When 
completed, this work will rank among the writings 
which have most contributed to the creation of 
the great science of our century — the philosophical 
history of the human mind. 

Of all the religions professed by civilized peoples, 
the Greek religion is the least precise and the least 
fixed. The Pelasgic forms of worship generally 

* ' Histoire des Religions de la Grece antique,' by Alfred 
Maury, vol. i. (1857). 

3 



34 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



appear to have been coarse and barbarous. It is 
surprising that the people who realized, for the 
first time, the complete type of civilization, should 
have long remained, in the matter of religion, so 
far inferior, not only to the Semitic nations, which 
were in ancient times superior in this respect to 
the Indo-European peoples, but also to several 
branches of the Indo-European family, such as 
those of India, Persia, Phrygia. The extreme 
difficulty of the study of Greek mythology is pre- 
cisely due to this character of dogmatic imperfec- 
tion. The ancient Greeks having possessed no 
definite rule of faith, their religion, poetically so 
charming, is, from the standpoint of our theological 
ideas, but a heap of inconsistent fables, the true 
sense of which it is difficult to unravel. The new 
school very properly gives up all hope of finding 
there anything like deep mysteries or lofty sym- 
bolism. It consisted of confused recollections of 
some ancient worship of nature, traces of primitive 
sensations, embodied in personages to whom, by 
playing on words, and I dare say by cock-and- 
bull stories, similar to those that spring up in a 
child's fancy, adventures were attributed. A 
lively, active, and forgetful people composed the 
exquisite plots of these fables, which, embellished 
by poetry and by art, became a mythology common 
to all the peoples of the Graeco-Roman world. 

Greece never had a sacred book ; she never had 
any symbols, any councils, any sacerdotal caste, 
organized for the preservation of dogmas. Her 



PAGANISM. 



35 



poets and her artists were her true theologians ; 
the idea of the various deities was almost left to 
the arbitrary conception of the individual. Hence 
that marvellous freedom which enabled the Greek 
mind to move spontaneously in all directions, 
without experiencing the constraint of an inspired 
text ; hence also art, freed from theological con- 
trol, and having the right to create, according to 
its fancy, types of the divine world, derived in- 
comparable facilities ; but hence also, for religion, 
arose an unfortunate uncertainty, which left its 
creed unguided, opened an unlimited career to 
the fancies of individual devotion, and ended by 
an incredible overflow of follies and nonsense. In 
that chaos of inconsistent fables, nothing is more 
difficult than to grasp the true essence of the 
Hellenic religion, I mean the aliment which it 
furnished to the craving for belief. This is the 
object of M. Maury's researches. He is less 
occupied with the interpretation of particular 
myths than with questions relative to worship, 
morality, and the forms under which the senti- 
ment of piety manifested itself in paganism. To 
the student, religions present themselves under 
such numerous aspects, that, to be complete, their 
history must needs be written from very different 
points of view. , An extensive history of Christian 
theology could be made without touching upon 
the history of Christianity as a great social fact ; 
one could exhaust the social history of Chris- 
tianity without saying one word about Christian 

3—2 



36 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



devotion. The same may be said of paganism. 
Leaving to others the task of extracting the 
poetical element contained in antique fables, M. 
Maury confines his labours chiefly to seeking for 
the feelings which gave rise to them, and the 
amount of positive religion concealed in them. 

In the first two chapters of his book, M. Maury 
endeavours to unravel the intricate network of the 
population of Greece, and to bring to light the 
origin of the Hellenic religion. Though not con- 
taining the largest display of the author's personal 
views, these two chapters are certainly those 
which, to French readers, present the newest 
ideas. 

In them M. Maury has grouped, with both 
erudition and judgment, all the results achieved 
in Germany by comparative philology, within the 
last few years, upon the subject of the primitive 
unity of Indo-European religions. These results, 
scattered through a host of scientific papers, 
especially in the Zeitschrift fur vergleichende Sprach- 
forschung of M. Kuhn, the best philological paper 
now published, are of the greatest importance to 
history and philosophy. Is there, indeed, a more 
striking phenomenon than the occurrence, in the 
ancient religions of the race which founded civili- 
zation from Ceylon to Iceland, of the same re- 
semblance as in their languages ? It is to-day an 
incontestable fact that the most diverse peoples 
of that great race — the Hindus, the Persians, 
the Armenians, the Phrygians, the Greeks, the 



PAGANISM. 



37 



Italians, the Germanic, Slav, and even Celtic 
peoples — primitively had the same creed, consist- 
ing in the worship of the forces of nature con- 
sidered as free agents. All the systems which 
tried to explain Greek mythology as borrowed 
from Egypt, Judea, Phoenicia, or as based upon 
symbolic lore, or founded on revealed truths — all 
such systems, I say, must now be abandoned.* 
Greek mythology is one of the forms which have 
clothed, in course of time, and under the influence 
of local circumstances, that naturalism, of which 
the Vedas offer the most ancient and the purest 
type. No doubt the religious patrimony common 
to all Indo-European people was inconsiderable, 
if we look only to the number and the philo- 
sophical value of the ideas it contained ; no doubt 
every branch of the great race so developed this 
primitive groundwork as to make it its own — and 
Greece in particular transformed it by her plastic 
genius and her delicate taste ; but the groundwork 
remains everywhere the same : wherever the Indo- 
European race preserves any recollection of its 
ancient religious state, we meet with an echo, 
more or less faint, of the sensations which re- 
vealed to man the existence of a divine world con- 
cealed behind nature. 

® Certainly the progress of studies brings us to estimate at 
a high figure the indebtedness of Greece to Phoenicia in the 
matter of mythology ; nevertheless, in the general view of 
the Greek religion, the Aryan stock preserves its primitive 
and generative influence. 



38 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



How did the human mind extract from that 
naturalism, so simple in appearance, a vast col- 
lection of fables ? How did it transform material 
elements into personages, and myths concerning 
them into adventures the relation of which to the 
original signification of the myths is often unre- 
cognisable ? This is what modern criticism has 
often acutely detected. Sometimes the reason of 
such metamorphosis is quite obvious, as, for in- 
stance, when the fire of the domestic hearth 
(hestia or vesta), and the subterranean fire (yulcanus), 
become two deities : the former, pure and vener- 
able ; the latter, sad and toilsome. At other times 
the vagaries of popular fancy, and the impossi- 
bility experienced by succeeding generations of 
retaining the sense of a legend, were the cause of 
strange deviations. Productions of an early age, 
when man and nature, scarcely distinct one from 
the other, had, so to speak, but one consciousness, 
the simple dogmas of primitive religion soon 
ceased to be understood, and were degraded to 
the level of fables and romances. 

I will quote but one instance of this. The serene 
and pleasurable emotions awakened by the first 
rains of spring inspired the ancestors of the 
Indo-European race with an idea found in the 
mythologies of nearly all their descendants. Dew 
fertilizing the ground was conceived as the 
mysterious union of two deities, Heaven and 
Earth. 'The pure sky,' says ^Eschylus, excellent 
interpreter of the old fables, ' loves to penetrate 



PAGANISM. 



39 



the earth ; the earth, in its turn, aspires to the 
union ; the rain falling from the amorous sky 
fecundates the earth, and the earth brings forth 
for the good of mortals pasturage for the cattle 
and the gifts of Ceres.' As the imagination of 
primitive peoples always confused with a sensation 
the circumstances accompanying it, the bird whose 
song is heard when the showers of spring refresh 
the ground, the cuckoo, was involved in the myth, 
and its sweet and melancholy cry represented to 
the simple men of early ages the amorous sighs 
of the divine couple. And do you wish to know 
what this myth, at the same time charming and 
sublime, became when interpreted by a less deli- 
cate period ? An equivocal story, much enjoyed 
by Aristophanes, to which the people added ridi- 
culous details, and which was the occasion of 
coarse practices. It was said that Juno, being on 
Mount Thornax one very cold day, a benumbed 
cuckoo took refuge in her bosom. The goddess 
took pity on the bird ; but she had scarcely given 
it shelter, when Jupiter (for it was he) reassumed 
his natural form. They added that, the goddess 
having resisted, Jupiter was obliged to promise to 
wed her. 

It is not easy to imagine the frequency of such 
transformations in antiquity. Greek mythology 
is, from beginning to end, but a vast misinter- 
pretation, thanks to which the divine forces 
invented by the rapture of the men of the early 
ages at the first sight of nature were transformed 



4o NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



into individuals. The same thing occurred in India, 
and is still going on there. Small-pox and cholera 
are personified ; legends of the great deities are 
daily subjected, if not to additions, at least to not- 
able modifications as regards the form in which 
they are presented. Yet nowhere so much as in 
Brahminic worship is the trace of the primitive 
worship of nature visible. It is to fire, under the 
name it bears as an element {agni, ignis), that the 
hymns of the Veda are addressed. The devas 
themselves (divi, dii) were not the result of a meta- 
physical reasoning analogous to that by which 
monotheism deduces the necessity of a supreme 
cause : they belong to that class of aerial beings 
with which the imagination of the primitive Aryan 
peopled nature — beings conceived as in many 
respects inferior to man. 

It was chiefly in the worship of heroes that 
variations of religious sentiment had the oppor- 
tunity of showingthemselves,and produced singular 
results. Heroes are not, as was long believed, 
deified men : they have the same origin as gods. 
Nearly always a god and a hero answer to 
the same allegory, and, under different figures, 
represent the same phenomenon, the same star, 
the same meteor. The hero is thus the counter- 
part of a deity, the dim reflection and, as it were, 
the parhelion of the splendour of a mighty god. 
It is true that if we compare the divine legend 
with the heroic legend, we shall generally find the 
latter much richer. But the reason of that differ- 



PAGANISM. 



4i 



ence is quite simple. The hero, being regarded 
as a man, and having, according to common 
opinion, left traces of his existence here below, 
must necessarily have obtained greater popularity 
and appealed more directly to the feelings of the 
crowd. It is thus that the saints, in the less en- 
lightened regions of Christianity, occupy a more 
important place than God Himself, precisely be- 
cause, being so much inferior to Him, the distance 
which separates them from mortals is not so in- 
superable. 

It was chiefly at the time when there was an 
endeavour to draw moral teaching from the pagan 
religion that the heroes gained in importance and 
popularity. It cannot indeed be denied that they 
lent themselves to that kind of teaching far better 
than the gods. The adventures wherein their 
virtue, subjected to sore trials, was seen to succumb 
at times in order to rise afterwards, were proposed 
by poets as models of resignation and courage. 
Hercules in particular was made use of for 
this purpose by those whom we may call the 
preachers of paganism. Hercules, according to a 
highly probable hypothesis, which the demon- 
strations of M. Maury almost raise to the rank 
of a certainty, was an ancient deity of the air 
(Hera-cles), whose worship, in the hands of the 
warlike race of the Dorians, assumed an heroic 
colour, and was transformed, under the influence 
of poets and philosophers, into a pure moral 
allegory. This demi-god, like all the other divine 



42 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



types of the Hellenes, proceeding from the per- 
sonification of natural elements, but strangely 
magnified by being confused with the Tyrian 
Melkarth, eventually became the ideal of human 
perfection — a kind of saint of whom an edifying 
biography was made, and by reference to whom 
it was endeavoured to arouse the sentiment of 
duty. This may appear incredible, but India 
furnishes us with many instances of similar trans- 
formations. Vishnu, who in Hindu mythology 
plays a part analogous to that of Hercules, was, at 
the outset, but the personification of air — an image 
of the celestial vault lighted up by the sun. Then 
labours were attributed to him, taken chiefly from 
the beneficent effects of the sun, and he was 
transformed into a kind of redeemer devoting 
himself to the salvation of mankind. 

How could such simple intuitions, corresponding 
originally to nothing philosophical or moral, satisfy 
during so many centuries and until a period of 
brilliant civilization, the religious requirements of 
the most refined races ? How, in our day, does 
a country like India, suffering, it is true, from 
secular decadence, but where human thought stirs 
with so much might and originality, cling obsti- 
nately, despite Christian and Mussulman teaching, 
to a religious system which, it would seem, ought 
not to have outlived the infancy of mankind ? 
Habit, whose influence on religious matters is 
most decisive, can alone explain so peculiar a 
phenomenon. Handed down by tradition, those 



PAGANISM. 



43 



fables, in spite of their absurdity, spoke to the 
imagination and to the heart, because they were 
old. Religious sentiment clings to antiquated 
dogma, even when it sees such dogma annihilated 
or refuted. Close to a little town of Brittany, 
where I spent my childhood, there used to be a 
chapel dedicated to the Virgin, and containing a 
highly venerated Madonna. One night a fire 
broke out in the chapel, and left only the shape- 
less and charred trunk of the statue. The alms 
of the faithful soon repaired the poor shrine ; a 
new statue was set upon the altar in place of the 
old one, which, to avoid destroying it, was put by 
in some remote corner. This was a sore trial to 
the simple faith of the neighbouring peasantry. 
Despite her rich veil and her bright colours, the 
new Virgin could not command any prayers : their 
vows were all addressed to the calcined debris 
which had been deprived of its honours. This old, 
mutilated statue had in the past heard their en- 
treaties and received their confidence in trouble ; 
in their eyes, to pay their homage to another 
Virgin, because she was new and possessed finer 
garments, would have been infidelity. 

The first duty of criticism, therefore, if it would 
understand the beliefs of the past, is to take its 
standpoint in the past. Physical science, on one 
side, by excluding from nature all that resembles 
free agents, and monotheism, on the other, by 
teaching us to consider the world as a sort of 
machine having no other life but that imparted to 



44 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



it by the supreme workman, have made it very 
difficult for us fully to comprehend a religion based 
upon nature conceived as animated. Yet how 
many ideas are recorded in religious history, the 
reason for which escapes ordinary common-sense, 
but which have fascinated whole sections of man- 
kind ! When persons who are only conversant 
with European affairs are told that Buddhism is a 
religion without any god, or rather in which the 
gods (devas) are beings of so little consequence 
that to attain final perfection they are obliged to 
become men and to owe their salvation to a man, 
it seems to them inconceivable ; yet this is true to 
the letter, and the religion in question is the one 
which at this moment has more adherents than 
any other in the world. As a rule, people do not 
take a sufficiently comprehensive view of the 
variety of the productions of the human mind. 
The comparative study of languages, of literatures, 
and of religions, in widening the circle of received 
ideas, will alone bring people to understand under 
how many different aspects the world has been 
and may be considered. 

It is certain that, according to our way of 
judging, antiquity, if we except its schools of 
philosophy, was deficient in one of the elements 
which we regard as essential to sound reasoning 
— I mean a clear conception of nature and its 
unalterable laws. At enlightened periods of the 
world's history this deficiency was hardly felt ; on 
the contrary, the scientific spirit, which Greece 



PAGANISM. 



45 



will have the eternal honour of inaugurating in 
the world, owed in a certain sense its origin to 
polytheism. It is, indeed, a fact worthy of notice 
that the nomad Semitic peoples, who from the 
beginning appear to have been more or less in- 
clined to monotheism, never had a science or 
philosophy of their own. Islamism, which is the 
purest production of Semitic genius, and which 
may be looked upon as the ideal of monotheism, 
suppressed all curiosity, all inquiry into first 
causes. God is great ! God knows ! Such is the 
answer of the Arab to narratives most likely to 
provoke his surprise. The Jewish people, though 
superior in religion to all the peoples of antiquity, 
also offer no trace of scientific movement pre- 
vious to their intercourse with Greece. ' From 
the earliest ages,' says, with much truth, M. 
Ravaisson,* ' the Hebraic religion, in order to 
account for nature and for man, had invoked the 
holy and all-powerful God, the Eternal, anterior 
and superior to the world, sole author and law- 
giver of the universe. On the contrary, the in- 
numerable deities of other religions — notably of 
the Hellenic religion — were but special powers, of 
reciprocally limited authority, resembling natural 
objects, subject nearly to the same imperfections 
and to the same vicissitudes. In consequence, 
seeing in the universe, in its successive pheno- 
mena, and in its various parts, a unity, an order, 

® Me"moires de l'Academie des Inscriptions et Belles 
Lettres, vol. xxi., ist part, p. I and following. 



46 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



a harmony which neither the discordant wills of 
the gods nor their fortuitous adventures could ex- 
plain, men early tried to discover, by means of 
reason, that universal cause as to which mythology 
remained mute. Such was, it seems, with 'the 
Greeks the origin of philosophy.' 

So long as the Greek mind preserved its vigour 
and originality, the absence of an authorized 
religion had its advantages. But when intellectual 
culture became weakened, superstition, against 
which polytheism opposed too few barriers, spread 
over the world, and injured even the finest minds. 
In this respect I do not know anything more sad 
than the spectacle offered by philosophy from the 
commencement of the third century of our era. 
What men were Ammonius, Plotinus, Proclus, 
Isidorus ! What noble minds and great intellects! 
Where could we find a martyr who by her austere 
charm would be equal to Hypatia ? What a man 
above all was Porphyrus, of all antiquity perhaps 
the only scholar who possessed exactitude and 
critical acumen, as Niebuhr and M. Letronne have 
very successfully pointed out ! Yet what indelible 
blots in the biography of these great men ! What 
aberrations in all that relates to spirits, to familiar 
demons, to theurgy ! Porphyrus, excellent critic in 
everything else, admits, as regards metempsychosis 
and apparitions, things little less absurd than 
table-turning and spirit-rapping ! Some time ago 
I read the lives of these great men, admirable in 
so many respects, with the intention of presenting 



PAGANISM. 



47 



them as the saints of philosophy. Doubtless, by 
their lofty character, their high morality, their 
noble pride, often also by the legends attached to 
their names, they are worthy to rank beside the 
most revered Christian ascetics. But their cre- 
dulity on the score of spirits wounded my feelings 
and prevented me from appreciating the better 
sides of their lives. There also lies the venom 
which taints the character, otherwise most attrac- 
tive, of Julian. If the restoration of paganism 
was only destined to revive the gross superstitions 
with which that Emperor seems to have been 
constantly occupied, it is not easy to understand 
why a man of so much intellect should, for the 
sake of such absurdities, have earned for himself 
the infamous title of Apostate. 

But I am anticipating the order of time ; I am 
speaking of the decadence of paganism, and as 
yet M. Maury has only treated of the period when 
myths were still full of freshness and life. In the 
next volume he will set forth the religious institu- 
tions of Greece, all that relates to their mysteries, 
to oracles, to festivals, to priesthood, to the 
practices of devotion. There it is that M. Maury's 
erudition and criticism promise us the most in- 
teresting results. Of all the savants of our time 
M. Maury is the best acquainted with the organi- 
zation and, if I may be permitted the expression, 
the vestry details of ancient worship. A book in 
which the whole history of Greek polytheism is 
depicted — in its gradual transformations, in its 



48 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



alliance with the religion of the Romans, in its 
struggle with Christianity, in its agony, prolonged 
through the superstitions of the Middle Ages 
almost to our own day — cannot fail to be of sur- 
passing interest. 



COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 

About ten years ago the study of the religions of 
antiquity underwent quite a decisive revolution. 
The method of comparative philology then began 
to be applied to it, and from this application very 
important results followed at once. First of all, 
it was ascertained that the division of mythologies 
coincides with the division of languages, so much 
so that there is an Indo-European mythology, as 
there is a family of Indo-European languages. 
Afterwards, the essential processes of the formation 
of myths were revealed. The glory of that 
great discovery belongs to Germany. Eugene 
Burnouf had certainly foreseen it, and the last 
pages of the preface of the third volume of the 
' Bhagavata Purana ' prove beyond doubt that in 
his last years he had arrived at most correct 
views concerning the origin of myths. But en- 
gaged in works long since begun, and to finish 
which he obstinately applied himself, he stopped 
on the shores of that vast ocean, and was satisfied 
with fixing on it a long and searching look. The 
credit of the creation of comparative philology 
belongs chiefly to MM. Adalbert Kuhn and Max 

4 



So NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



M tiller. Baron Eckstein, with his unusual shrewd- 
ness and penetration — M, Guigniaut, with that 
love of truth which pervades all he did, under- 
stood it at once. M. Maury, always keeping 
pace with the advance of real knowledge, accepted 
unhesitatingly the new results in his ' History of 
the Religions of Ancient Greece.' Lastly, M. 
Breal, possessing the chief instrument of dis- 
coveries — scientific knowledge of languages — 
entered resolutely on the path of original research, 
and took his place, by the side of MM. Kuhn and 
Mtiller, among the most eminent workers. His 
two essays upon ' Hercules and Cacus ' and the 
' Myth of CEdipus,'* show what light may be 
thrown by the new method upon problems which 
the old school solved but imperfectly, or pro- 
nounced insoluble. 

That method, reduced to general terms, may be 
summed up as follows : 

By the necessity of their structure, Indo-Euro- 
pean idioms were, from their origin, obliged to 
animate each object. To every substantive, even 
that which applied to abstract or lifeless ideas, was 
assigned a gender ; in speech the idea which it re- 
presented figured as a man or a woman. Notions 
were thus transformed into actions, the duration 
of which was determined by the tense in which 
the verb was employed. Every idea became a 

* M. Breal has published these two essays, and others 
besides, in a volume entitled ' Melanges de Mythologie et de 
Linguistique,' Paris, 1878. 



COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 



5i 



story ; every impression became a scene in the 
drama of the universe, and as, at the primitive 
period of the creation of language, all the forces 
of nature were looked upon as personal and free 
agents, every one of the facts told about them 
was an incident of their history. The air, the 
sky, the sun, the dawn were thus predestined, by 
the names they bore and the verbs employed when 
speaking of them, to become the heroes of romantic 
adventures, lending themselves to all sorts of 
double meanings and misinterpretations. 

These misinterpretations occurred very early. 
The primitive gods, each corresponding to some 
natural phenomenon, became, as soon as language 
began to grow old, individuals of whom long 
stories were told. Mythology and religion mani- 
fested then a tendency to divorce. These stories 
contained numberless absurdities, and were, in 
most cases, not at all edifying. Religion, on 
the contrary, was aspiring more and more towards 
an ideal of morality and piety. Hence a strange 
confusion arose. Myths, far from constituting 
the religion of ancient peoples, were to them a 
cause of perplexity. It became necessary to en- 
deavour to explain them, to soften them down. 
The gods became types of moral heroism ; there 
was a thorough contradiction between what they 
were expected to be and the deeds attributed 
to them. To explain these strange deeds two 
theologies were created, the one adopting the 
historical interpretation (school of Euemerus), the 

4—2 



52 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



other having recourse to allegorical interpreta- 
tion (Stoics). As regards critical science, they 
were both erroneous, and completely mistook the 
genius of primitive times. 

These schools reappear more or less in modern 
research. Banier gives the date of Jupiter's 
reign, and narrates the political consequences of 
the quarrels of Osiris, King of Egypt, with his 
brother Typhon. Clavier furnishes the list of 
the old dynasties of Hercules, Prometheus, etc. 
Bacon, on the contrary, bases upon the myth of 
Typhon, as we find it in the Homeric Odes and 
in Hesiod, a political treatise. In our days the 
symbolic school, though endowed with a much 
truer impression of ancient religions, could not 
guard itself against a fundamental error. By 
attributing to the supposed inventors of myths 
philosophical ideas which were not incorporated 
with them until several centuries later, that school 
has inverted the order of time. The true, though 
too long neglected key to those old fables is the 
study of language. The axiom, Nomina numina, 
which Burnouf delighted to repeat, is truth itself. 
The analysis of words is the analysis of the 
oldest religion of the Indo-European race. The 
philological school pitilessly unravels the forma- 
tion of myths. In them it looks neither for 
theology, nor philosophy, nor science, nor morality, 
nor history ; it only seeks for transformed signs 
of the first impressions experienced by our race 
in the presence of nature. Mythology as a whole 



COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 



53 



becomes thus a vast play upon words. The myth 
is formed by the inevitable misuse of a lan- 
guage in which each substantive was an ani- 
mated being, in which every verb signified a 
physical action. Myths are multiplied through the 
misuse of synonyms, of homonyms, and by means 
of popular etymology, a fruitful source of fables 
even in our day. Being a safe instrument of 
analysis, comparative philology thus acts as a 
guide to the science of myths, and takes the 
place of the arbitrary guesses by means of which 
the old schools endeavoured to fathom those 
strange enigmas. Without the help of philology, 
researches in comparative mythology run the risk 
of proceeding blindfold, for the field of hypo- 
theses is unlimited. But, with the aid afforded by 
words, which stamp each fable with an indelible 
record of its origin, chances of error are con- 
siderably reduced. One single grammatical proof 
speaks louder in favour of the affinity between 
two myths than the most striking resemblances, 
and the closest coincidence in the story is of far 
less importance than words preserved in the 
various languages of the family, whose identity is 
established according to the rules of comparative 
grammar. 

Such are the principles which M. Breal, inge- 
nious and original disciple of his learned masters 
from Germany, applied to two of the most in- 
teresting myths of antiquity. The fable of Cacus 
has an exclusively Italian appearance. M. Breal 



54 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



very successfully points out that it belongs to a 
group of mythic ideas and even of mythic terms, 
which, with slight modifications, is to be met 
with in Greece, in India, in Persia, in Germany. 
With marvellous sagacity, he recognises the cross- 
roads in which popular imagination, in quest of 
wonders, went astray to alter and embellish the 
original narrative. By referring to the great 
primitive book of Aryan religions, to the Vedas, 
he at last discovers the first, essentially natural- 
istic, germ of the myth. Doubtful indications 
are here combined with unquestionable pieces of 
evidence. But the aim of such researches is not 
to explain all with the same degree of accuracy ; 
it is to light upon the general processes by which 
those strange fantastic creations were formed, 
whose secret as regards details may very possibly 
escape us for ever. 

The myth of CEdipus having been formed 
mostly on the soil of Greece, draws but indirect 
light from Vedic literature. It is a very much 
obliterated myth, which soon received develop- 
ments foreign to its origin. Perhaps some of M. 
Breal's sentences will occasion misunderstandings. 
In explaining these fables, it is highly important 
to distinguish most carefully the meaning applied 
to mythical personages at different periods. In 
mythology, as in the science of language, ety- 
mology preserves its full rights ; but etymology 
must not be asked to fix the sense a word may 
have had at relatively modern dates. The words 



COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 



55 



thygater, tochter, daughter, have for common 
origin the Sanscrit word duhitri, which means 
' milk-maid ' — young girls, in the huts of our 
earliest ancestors, having been entrusted with the 
task of milking the cattle. It would, however, be 
most incorrect to translate in that sense the three 
words we have cited when found in Homer, in 
Goethe, or in Shakespeare. Perhaps, also, M. 
Breal may be accused of speculations not fully 
established. But that which, in the young philo- 
logist's essay, possesses a high scientific value, is 
the etymological analysis of some most important 
words. Lams is really the Dasyu of India (let us 
bear in mind, for the transition of d into /, Ulysses 
= Odysseus), the great enemy of the solar god, 
that which the sun kills. CEdipus is one of the 
thousand forms of the sun struggling with 
monsters. The story of the Sphynx proceeds 
from a wonderfully simple pun on the very name 
of (Edipus (he who knows the riddle of the feet). 
All the details of the fable are far from being 
cleared up ; but the kernel of the myth, and the 
manner in which it was formed, are pointed out 
with sufficient precision. 

The key to these great discoveries is the study of 
Sanscrit, chiefly of Vedic Sanscrit. The exclusively 
Hellenic school of the Welkers, of the Lobecks, 
who would explain Greece by Greece alone, is 
extinct. Greece must be explained by a com- 
prehensive survey of the race to which it belongs. 
The very qualities of the Greek mind, that charm- 



56 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



ing genius which turns to gold all it touches, 
made the Hellenes rather indifferent preservers of 
early traditions. Every fable becomes in their 
hands a subject of individual composition, a pre- 
text for ingenious fictions and for works of art of 
eternal beauty. Never were mortals more un- 
ceremonious with gods. From their genealogies 
differently intertwined, poets continually drew 
original combinations, unexpected arrangements, 
as Glycera used to do with her bouquets. That is 
why, the more we study the past of mankind, the 
more unique and incomparable does Greece be- 
come. Every discovery is a hymn to her glory, 
and adds new nobility and perfection to her image. 
Sombre fanaticism, horrible scholasticism, with 
its endless articles of faith, were always unknown 
to her. Provided you spoke of the gods in fine 
language, you were absolved. ' Grace,' says 
Pindar, the excellent theologian, ' grace which 
turns all things into honey for human beings, gives 
authority to error and makes the incredible be- 
lieved. ... It is the future which discerns the 
truth. But it becomes man to say nothing of 
the gods but what is beautiful : the fault is then 
less serious.' 



FIRST WORKS ON BUDDHISM. 



A doctrine which finds the supreme end of life 
in nothing, or, if we prefer it, in a paradise in 
which man is reduced to the state of a mummy — 
a doctrine which proclaims that the height of per- 
fection is the annihilation of the life transmitted 
to us — in which man is looked upon as the highest 
step in creation — in which the idea of a Supreme 
Being only appears at a late period — such a 
doctrine is so extraordinary a phenomenon that our 
minds admit its possibility with the utmost reluct- 
ance. Yet such a doctrine exists. To make the 
paradox more complete, this doctrine, in appear- 
ance the most despairingly hopeless that ever was 
professed, has inspired the most diverse races 
with wonders of devotion ; the Church of Nihilism 
remains to the present time, without any notable 
schism, the most compact religious edifice of the 
East. This is certainly a fact unique in the 
history of the human mind. Fantastic by its 
destiny, Buddhism is still more so by its philo- 
sophy, its teachings, the legend of its founder, the 
strange style of its sacred books. Uniting the 
most abstract scholasticism with the strangest 



58 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



dreams of imagination, this religion, at first 
without a god, and almost without any form of 
worship, rushes into the wildest extravagances 
of mythology. The religion which at the outset 
was the most philosophical, and in which certain 
modern schools affect to find the last word of 
wisdom, has become the grossest of popular 
creeds. Though opposed to all our instincts, 
Buddhism yet exerts a morbid fascination, like 
those fearful monstrosities which at times unveil 
the secret abysses of nature. 

Buddhism is really a discovery of our century. 
From Marco Polo, who knew the legend of the 
' Lalitavistara,'* to Father Horace della Penna, 
nothing but fables had reached us from Central 
Asia. Seventy-five years ago Buddhism was still 
the object of the most contradictory assertions. 
To some, Buddha was an African negro, for he 
had woolly hair ; to others, he was the god Odin 
(Wodan) ; to others, again, a planetary deity. 
Certain similarities with Christianity completely 
misled inquirers. Some saw in them proof of a 
Nestorian origin ; others concluded that Buddhism 
was the prototype of Christianity. A pope, monks, 
confession, saints, relics, bells — what more could 
be wanted to establish the close relationship of 
the two religions? 

The studies of which China and Central Asia 
were the subject at the beginning of this century 
began to dispel the darkness. But the man who 
° Relation, chap, clxxviii. 



FIRST WORKS ON BUDDHISM. 



59 



really lifted the veil was Mr. Brian Houghton 
Hodgson, English resident at the Court of Nepal. 
Called upon by his position as agent of the East 
India Company, which made him the almost abso- 
lute sovereign of several millions of men, to reside 
in the centre of a country where Buddhism is still 
flourishing, Mr. Hodgson, as early as 1821, 
resolved to take advantage of his sojourn in Kat- 
mandhu to study a doctrine about which so little 
was known. Hitherto Buddhism had only been 
met with in Thibet, Mongolia, China, Japan, Indo- 
China, Malaysia, and Ceylon. A keen critic could 
already have surmised that the initial impulse 
came from India ; but then arose a seemingly in- 
surmountable difficulty. If India was the birth- 
place of Buddhism, why does India offer hardly 
any trace of it, except in the Himalayan valleys 
immediately bordering on Thibet, which are 
scarcely considered as part of Hindostan ? All 
doubts vanished when Mr. Hodgson announced 
to the Asiatic Societies of Calcutta, London, and 
Paris the existence in the Nepal monasteries of 
a vast collection of Buddhist works written in 
Sanscrit, and unknown in the rest of India. The 
origin of Buddhism was then discovered ; no 
doubt could thenceforth be cast either on the 
cradle of that fantastic religion, or on the language 
which it spoke at its birth. 

With the most disinterested generosity, Mr. 
Hodgson, anxious that learned Europe should 
enjoy the results of his discovery, gave, in 1837, 



60 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



to the Asiatic Society of Paris, a most valuable 
collection of works written in Sanscrit, which that 
Society soon supplemented by the addition of 
copies made at its own expense. A philologist 
already famous for his critical genius, M. Eugene 
Burnouf, thought that the best manner in which 
to acknowledge the generous intentions of the 
giver was to make known the contents of those 
precious volumes. With this object he resolved 
to publish one of the books, with commentaries, 
and preceded by an introduction, wherein he 
would expound the history and the dogmas of 
Buddhism. He chose for this purpose ' the Lotus 
of True Faith,'* perhaps the most charac- 
teristic of all the canonical books of Nepal. 
But, when drawing up the introduction which was 
intended to precede the translation, it struck him 
that the introduction was becoming the chief 
work, and could not even be confined to one volume. 
Thus came out, in 1844, the first volume of the 
* Introduction to the History of Indian Buddhism,'*)* 
a masterpiece of erudition and scientific spirit, 
the appearance of which was a landmark in the his- 
tory of religions. In it M. Burnouf expounded 
with marvellous lucidity the origin of Buddhism 
and its vicissitudes. The doctrine was set forth 

Saddharma fiundarika; literally, the white lotus of the 
law of good men. Nelumbo is the Cingalese name of the 
Indian and Chinese lotus {Nelumbium sfteciosimi). — Trans- 
lator's Note. 

t ' Introduction a PHistoire du Buddhisme indien/ par 
Eug. Burnouf. 4to., Paris, 1844. 



FIRST WORKS ON BUDDHISM. 



6r 



according to the texts of Nepal, which served as 
models for the books of Thibet, Mongolia, and 
China. A second volume was to complete the 
work, by the exposition of Southern Buddhism, 
according to the Pali books of Ceylon, which were 
adopted in Indo-China and Malaysia. Conjointly 
with this, the translation of the ' Lotus,' long 
since completed, was to appear together with the 
memoirs, for which there had been no room in 
the introduction. Alas! premature death, in de- 
priving France of one of her glories, was to cut 
short that noble series of researches. The illus- 
trious Orientalist was correcting the last sheets of 
the 'Lotus,' when he felt the first symptoms of 
the disease which was about to carry him off 
(May, 1852). 

Eugene Burnouf worked on such an excellent 
system that his productions, even when incomplete, 
must remain the corner-stone of the researches 
made after him. This great master was always 
extremely cautious in his affirmations. He was 
constantly in fear of imposing his own opinions 
and, by the authority of his assertions, exer- 
cising an influence inconsistent with the love of 
truth. That is why, after a period of thirty 
years, the ■ Introduction ' and the ' Lotus ' have 
lost none of their value. 

On the advice of Burnouf, M. Foucaux, one 
of his most studious pupils, published, at the 
same time, a French translation of the 'Lalita- 
vistara,' or ' Legendary Life of Sakya-Mouni,' 



62 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



according to the Thibetan version. The founda- 
tion of the history of Buddhism was thus fairly laid. 
It only remained to explain the apparent inco- 
herences which at first provoked such legitimate 
surprise. 

Four facts apparently difficult to reconcile 
resulted from that first series of labours, under- 
taken with so much steadfastness and judgment. 
First we have a legend full of charm and, it may 
be said, of piety ; then a religious revolution, 
which, whatever may be the opinion professed 
as to the personality of its founder, preserves all 
its importance; then again, a Nihilistic philosophy, 
whose connection with the miracles of abnegation 
it produced could not be detected ; lastly, a 
learned religious organization which in the Middle 
Ages was for Central Asia what Christianity was 
for barbarous Europe — namely, a superior principle 
of morality and civilization. Much fresh light 
has been thrown upon these four points ; nothing, 
however, has yet modified, in any sensible degree, 
that which Burnouf s genius had detected at the 
first glance. 

I. 

The books which pretend to set forth the life and 
teachings of the Buddha are of two kinds : the 
simple Sutras of the south, the developed Sutras 
of the north. The simple or primitive Sutras 
possess an historical appearance which captivates 
at first sight. Every incident contained in them 



FIRST WORKS ON BUDDHISM. 



63 



takes place in India, and in a denned spot. Sakya 
teaches a few disciples, whose names are given, in 
the garden of a certain Anatha-Pindika. They 
have discussions ; it is obvious that the new doc- 
trine still meets with opposition, and must yet 
prove what it is worth. In the developed Sutras, 
on the contrary, everything occurs before a 
fabulous audience of Bodhisatvas, as imaginary as 
the worlds they come from. Nobody has to be 
converted ; everybody believes. Instead of real 
disciples, we see before us myriads of beings with 
names impossible to pronounce. In the simple 
Sutras there are neither magic, nor extravagant 
prodigies, nor celestial Buddhas. The contents of 
the work are credible and limited. In the developed 
Sutras everything is full of the most absurd hyper- 
boles. A fantastic arithmetic sports with numbers 
formed of the unit followed by one hundred and 
forty ciphers. Multitudes of Bodhisatvas, as nume- 
rous as the grains of sand rolled down by a million 
rivers huge as the Ganges, emerge together 
from the crevices of the earth, to listen to Sakya. 
It all looks like a visionary fabric, a castle in the 
air. Like haschisch, these exuberant dreams do 
away with time and space. The lassitude they 
produce is soon followed by drowsiness. The ex- 
position of the ' Lotus ' lasted, we are told, sixty 
mean kalpas* during which the Bodhisatva re- 

An arbitrary measure of time equivalent to one day and 
one night of Buddha, or four milliards three hundred and 
twenty millions of solar years.— Translator's Note. 



64 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



mained on the same seat, his body as motionless 
as his thoughts. All creation, however, listened 
to him without suffering the least fatigue either 
of mind or body. If the authors of these 
strange stories intended to compose a powerful 
narcotic, precursor of the nirvana* it must be 
confessed they thoroughly succeeded. 

The ' Lalitavistara ' is certainly the most curious 
in the series of writings which reveal the Aex^^ra 
7) TrpayQkv>7CL of the atheistic Christ of India. 
This Gospel of Nihilism, which offers some 
striking resemblances and some still more notable 
contrasts with the Gospel of Galilee, is well known 
to us, thanks to the valuable publication of M. 
Foucaux.-f- We are going to expose its texture, 
by tearing off handfuls of the golden spangles 
with which it is overlaid. It will be seen at once 
that it is not with the truly infantile naivete of the 
canonical Gospels, but rather with the puerile 
tediousness of the apocryphal Gospels of the Child- 

° A Sanscrit word from nir-gd (to cease to breathe),meaning, 
according to Buddhistic theories, the state of one who, being 
free from desire for material or immaterial existence, is finally 
emancipated from matter, and, having no more individual 
existence, is united with the Deity. — Translator's Note. 

' The popular view of Nirvana — as representing the en- 
trance of the soul into rest ; a subduing of all wishes and 
desires ; indifference to joy and pain, to good and evil — was 
in my opinion the conception of Buddha and his disciples.' — 
Max Muller. 

t ' Rgya-Tcher-Rol-Pa,' or £ DeVeloppement des Jeux,' 
Paris, 1848. (Translated from the Thibetan version of the 
original Sanscrit.) 



FIRST WORKS ON BUDDHISM. 



65 



hood,* that the pretended biography of the 
Hindoo Saviour may be compared. The canonical 
Gospels possess in the highest degree the art which 
India lacks — that of knowing where to stop on 
the road to exaggeration. Blinded by belief in the 
supernatural, misled by the dangerous taste she 
possesses for playing with infinity and losing her- 
self in meaningless enumerations, India lets her 
imagination run riot, thus violating the first 
rule of religious invention, which is to rave 
with measure, and to let fiction follow the analo- 
gies of truth. 

The Bodhisatva, ripe for deliverance, having 
reached the last but one of his temporal peregrina- 
tions, abides inTusitas, one of the heavenly spheres, 
where his merits have won for him supreme rank. 
Thousands of previous Buddhas, of gods, of genii, 
do him homage. But that does not suffice him. 
In his desire to attain supreme intelligence, he 
prepares to assume the human form, the only 
form under which one can become a Buddha. 
The duration of his sojourn on earth is fixed at 
twelve years. The gods, learning that the Bodhis- 
atva is about to enter the womb of a mother, go to 
India, disguised as Brahmins, to consult the 
Vedas. There they see that the Bodhisatva will, 
at his birth, be endowed with the thirty-two 
signs marking great men, and will, as a matter 
of course, be either king or Buddha. On hear- 
ing this, a great number of hermits rise to heaven 
* See the episode of Buddha at the writing-school. 

5 



66 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



as far as the region of fire, where they are con- 
sumed. 

Before descending from heaven, the Bodhisatva 
goes through four great examinations to ascertain 
where he is to be born. The gods review care- 
fully the sixteen royal families of India ; but they 
find fault with each ; the Bodhisatva enumerates 
the signs by which the privileged family may be 
recognised. That of Sakya alone combines all 
the required conditions. 

Before quitting heaven, the Bodhisatva gives the 
gods his last injunctions, and charges them to 
follow h lm, so as to attain with him final deliver- 
ance. The gods, weeping, kiss his feet ; he 
consoles them, saying that when he is gone 
Maitreya will teach them the law. The Bodhisatva 
inquires under what shape he is to enter his 
mother's womb. Several forms of gods and genii 
are proposed to him. A god informs him that 
the ' Rigveda ' mentions that of a young white 
elephant, which form the Bodhisatva eventually 
adopts. 

In the meantime, eight signs, forerunners of 
some great event, appear in the gardens of Sakya. 
The birds of the Himalaya come and perch on the 
balustrades ; all the trees blossom ; all the 
ponds are covered with lotus ; oil and butter, 
though used profusely, do not diminish ; trom- 
bones, theorbos, cymbals, without being touched, 
give forth harmonious sounds ; a pure light, 
cheering both body and soul, pervades everything. 



FIRST WORKS ON BUDDHISM. 



67 



The queen, Maya-Devi, foreseeing her destiny, 
asks permission of the king to give herself up 
to austerities, to seclude herself, and to offer 
numerous alms. The king acquiesces. Mean- 
while, the gods and the Bodhisatvas of all the 
universe set out to accompany the Buddha. An 
infinite splendour lights up all worlds ; all beings 
experience feelings of indescribable kindness and 
goodwill ; all sufferings are suspended ; the 
torments of hell are intermitted ; millions of 
instruments of music are heard ; hundreds of 
millions of gods support the Bodhisatva' s car with 
their heads, their arms, and their shoulders. 

The queen, asleep on her couch, is dreaming. 
The Bodhisatva enters her womb through her right 
side, whilst she, in a dream, sees the mystery 
that is taking place. She rises, filled with a 
new sensation of well-being, and goes to inform 
the king of her felicity. The gods offer their 
abode, that Maya may, without being disturbed, 
await there the miraculous birth. The king has 
a palace built purposely for her; but by a miracle 
Maya appears at the same time in the gods' 
abode. 

The Bodhisatva, in his mother's womb, seated 
with crossed legs, was constantly plunged in medi- 
tation. His mother saw him in her womb ; she 
felt neither oppression nor passion ; she had no 
disturbing dreams ; she never saw anything whose 
shape, sound, smell, or taste were unwelcome to 
her. During that time the people of Kapilavastou 

5—2 



68 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



were happy and virtuous ; they lived in bliss and 
innocence. 

The time of Buddha's birth is close at hand. 
All the flowers open their buds ; young fruit-trees 
are everywhere rising ; lion cubs come rushing 
from the Himalaya and roam through Kapi- 
lavastou, without hurting anyone. The children 
of the gods appear in the women's room, 
moving about in all directions ; the women of 
the Nagas are also seen half clad, flitting about in 
the air ; ten thousand daughters of gods, holding 
in their hands fans of peacocks' feathers, are 
beheld motionless in heaven ; ten thousand urns, 
filled with perfumes, pass round the city of Kapi- 
lavastou; ten thousand daughters of gods are 
seen carrying parasols, flags, banners ; one 
hundred thousand children of gods, holding 
shells, drums, tambourines, also appear. All 
the winds abstain from blowing, and the 
streams stop running ; fire no longer burns ; 
pearl chaplets, thousands of precious stones, are 
seen hanging from the galleries, the palaces, the 
terraces, the arches of doorways ; the jack- 
daws, owls, vultures, wolves and jackals cease 
their cries; harmonious sounds are alone to be 
heard ; everywhere in the air large and small 
parasols unfold themselves ; the timbals of heaven 
utter deep notes ; the high places and the low 
places of the earth assume the same level ; all 
the gods of the forests, half emerging from the 
foliage, are seen stooping and motionless. 



FIRST WORKS ON BUDDHISM. 



69 



Whilst these wonders are taking place the 
queen enters the garden of Lumbini ; she goes 
from grove to grove, examining first one green 
tree, then another. Suddenly one of the trees 
bows to and greets her. The queen, having 
stretched out her arm, takes hold of a branch, 
and looks up to heaven in silent prayer. The 
Bodhisatva comes out from her right side without 
injuring her. Indra and Brahma receive him in 
their arms. An immense lotus shoots through the 
ground to serve him as a cradle. Two streams 
of water, one hot, the other cold, spring forth 
for him to bathe in ; from heaven a parasol 
comes down to shade him. 

But he, reclining upon the lotus, attentively 
considers the four points of space, with the 
glance of a great man. He perceives the millions 
of worlds, the gods and the men. He proclaims 
that he has come to save all creatures, and sprinkle 
over all beneficent rain from the great cloud 
of the law. A thrill passes through all beings. 
A deluge of flowers, of garlands, of ornaments, 
and odoriferous powders fills all space ; the light 
of a hundred thousand blended hues, bringing 
comfort to the body and to the soul, breaks over 
all worlds. Passion, hatred, ignorance, pride, 
sadness, despondency, fear, envy, are banished 
from the hearts of all beings. The sound of the 
dance is heard in all directions. 

It is a law that the mother of a Bodhisatva 
must die seven days after the birth of her son, 



;o NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



because, seeing him so beautiful, her heart would 
break at the moment of his becoming an ascetic, 
in order to devote himself to the salvation of 
mortals. And so Maya-Devi expires in the midst 
of the Apsaras* who gather round her, and 
comes to life again in the midst of the gods. 
The king, before returning to the palace, visits 
five hundred Sakyas with his son. They all place 
their dwellings at the child's disposal, who, mul- 
tiplying himself, makes them believe he is the 
guest of each. All the women are anxious to 
nurse him. His aunt, the venerable Pradjapati, 
is chosen in preference to all others ; eight nurses 
are appointed to carry him, eight to suckle him, 
eight to wash him, eight to watch him while at 
play. 

One episode, though it has not the same har- 
monious brevity, recalls the episode of the 
aged Simeon, in St. Luke's Gospel. A famous 
hermit, living on the slope of the Himalaya, 
and versed in the five transcendental sciences, 
on witnessing these marvellous apparitions, con- 
cluded that the great diamond had appeared. 
With his all-seeing eye, he saw in the town 
of Kapilavastou the child worshipped by all 
the worlds. He came through the air, and 
stopped at the king's door. The king received 
him with respect. ' O hermit,' said he to him, 
' I do not recollect having ever seen you before. 

* Apsaras, i.e. ap-sri-as, the name of female divinities, 
acting as honris in paradise. — Translator's Note. 



FIRST WORKS ON BUDDHISM. 



7i 



What is the object of your visit, and what do 
you wish ?' The hermit answered: 'Mighty king, 
to you a son is born, and I have come here to 
see him.' The king replied : ' Great hermit, the 
child is sleeping; wait a little until he wakes.' 
' Mighty king,' retorted the hermit, ' such beings 
do not sleep long.' Indeed, the Bodhisatva soon 
showed that he was awake ; the king, carefully 
holding him in his arms, brought him to the 
hermit, who, seeing his body was perfect (he 
possessed the thirty-two signs that indicate a great 
man, as well as the eighty secondary marks), 
clasped his hands, kissed the child's feet, took 
him in his arms, and remained thoughtful. Seeing 
him sigh and shed tears, the king anxiously said 
to him : ' O hermit, why do you weep ?' ' Mighty 
king, it is not over the child that I weep : he has 
not the slightest defect. It is for myself that I 
shed tears. Mighty king, I am stricken with 
years, and this young prince will manifest the 
perfect and complete intelligence of Buddha. To 
beings afflicted by passion, envy, and distress, 
he will restore calmness. Beings held in the 
trammels of transitory life, and whose doom is 
corruption, this child shall free from their bondage. 
Even as the flower of the fig-tree is but seldom 
seen in this world, so, great and mighty king, 
hundreds of millions of kalpas have to elapse 
before the advent of a Buddha. This child shall 
enable hundreds of millions of beings to cross over 
to the other shore. And I shall not see this pearl 



72 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



of Buddhas ! That is why, mighty king, in my 
sadness I heave such sighs.' 

The same suavity of imagination and the same 
prolixity of style deck with flowers, but with 
flowers whose fragrance is somewhat soporific, the 
accounts of the Buddha's entering upon his career 
of Saviour. Remaining in the women's apartment, 
he ran the risk of forgetting his mission ; to remind 
him of it, the gods change the notes of the con- 
certs into exhortations to him to deliver the world 
from suffering and death. While out walking, the 
sight of a decrepit old man, of a sick person, and 
of a corpse, convinces him of the vanity of all 
things. His meeting with a hermit, who has 
attained perfect calmness of mind, leads him to 
embrace the religious life. Obstacles thicken 
in his path. The gloomy forebodings of Gopa, 
his betrothed, the young girl's dreadful dreams, 
the mysterious vision she has, all act as warnings 
to the father, who enjoins the women to redouble 
their attractions that his son may forget mankind; 
but the interest of humanity is paramount. The 
gods and the genii agree to plunge the whole 
city in slumber, and to open the gates to the 
young prince. Sakya at midnight ascends the 
roof of the palace and sees the gods waiting for 
him. At the same moment rises the star which 
presided over his birth. Discovering by that sign 
that the hour has come, he makes his escape ; led 
by the gods, he is already far away when daylight 
breaks. 



FIRST WORKS ON BUDDHISM. 



73 



So far, many of these incidents call to mind 
the legend of Krishna. The account of the solitary 
life of the young Sakya is peculiar to Buddhism. 
The fugitive places himself under the direction of 
famous ascetics, none of whom can satisfy him. 
Perceiving that they are all misled, he decides 
not to imitate them. During the space of ten 
years he practises extraordinary austerities ; he 
becomes so emaciated that the gods are afraid he 
will die. They inform his mother, who is living 
among them. She goes to visit Sakya, who is so 
weak that he hardly recognises her ; however, 
he consoles her. The people of the neighbour- 
hood take him for a spirit from the cemetery. 
The demon, enraged at his austerities, tries to 
tempt him. The Bodhisatva repels all the seducer's 
assaults ; but, perceiving that physical exhaustion 
does not lead to increased intelligence, he prepares 
to take abundant nourishment. Ten young 
villagers bring him food, and he recovers all his 
beauty. He makes for himself a garment of a 
shroud. He bathes in the Nairanajana ; the gods 
throw all sorts of flowers and all kinds of perfumes 
over him. 

Arrived at Bodhimanda,* Sakya, recollecting 
that all previous Buddhas sat there on a carpet of 

* The seat of wisdom, named also Vadjrdsana in Sanscrit ; 
it is, according to Buddhistic legends, the place where the 
Bodhisatva is to become a Buddha. It is the same place as 
the modern town of Gaya, in Southern Belsar. — Trans- 
lator's Note. 



74 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



grass,* at the foot of the tree of intelligence, seats 
himself, and, facing the East, vows not to rise 
till he has acquired perfect intelligence. All 
the trees, all the mountains of the world bow 
towards Bodhimanda. All the children born on 
that day sleep with their heads turned in the 
direction of Bodhimanda. Sakya is subjected 
to a final attack from the demons ; their missiles 
are changed into flowers. He is called upon to 
adduce evidence of his virtuous deeds ; the earth 
bears witness to them. The demon possesses 
daughters capable of putting the vocation of 
an ascetic to the most dangerous proof ; he 
incites them to try against the young saint the 
thirty-two spells of women. The Bodhisatva, 
by means of undeniable arguments, convinces 
them that they are only illusions, and that the 
qualities of desire are not qualities. 

Henceforth delivered from all which fetters 
thought, the royal hermit progresses from medita- 
tion to meditation. In the first he does away 
with desires ; in the second, he eliminates actions 
and judgments ; in the third, though preserving 
recollection, he attains mystical indifference ; 
finally, in the fourth, he puts aside all personality 
and enters into pure thought, exempt from all 

° According to the ' Lalitavistara,' the Bodhisatva having 
seen a man named Svastika who was engaged in cutting 
grass, requested him to give him some to make a seat with. 
Now, Svastika is the name of a kind of mystical sign, 
an emblem of Buddha, which is sometimes accidentally 
formed by bits of grass.— Translator's Note. 



FIRST WORKS ON BUDDHISM. 



75 



changes. Against their father's advice, three of 
the demon's daughters attempt again to seduce the 
Buddha, who, without even heeding them, changes 
them into decrepit old women. Their father 
persuades them to confess their fault to the 
Buddha, who forgives them and restores them 
their first beauty. 

Sakya then perceives at a glance all his previous 
existences ; he traces the causes of disease and 
death, and ascertains that the only means of 
putting a stop to them is to annihilate birth and in- 
dividual existence. Become master of the elements 
of life, he exclaims : ' It is thus I shall put an end 
to suffering;' and he enters upon the nirvana. 
Immediately all beings experience an indescrib- 
able feeling of comfort ; all the regions of the 
world are filled with a light which appeases all 
suffering ; the timbals of the gods resound in 
the air ; the earth trembles in six different ways ; 
all the Buddhas burst forth with shouts of 
joy from the ten points of space. Sakya pro- 
nounces these words : ' The hermit, like the bird 
born from the egg, has broken his shell. I have 
attained the law of immortality, profound, calm, 
free from perturbation, luminous, beyond idea. 
Silent, I shall remain in the shadow of forests, in 
the depths of my own nature. No substance 
exists here below. For him who knows successive 
causes and effects, there is neither being nor 
negation.' 



76 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



II. 

The religious philosophy which pervades this 
fantastic gospel is more likely than the gospel 
itself to astonish persons unacquainted with the 
peculiarities of the human mind. ' Love, sacrifice, 
oblation have no reality ; our actions, good or 
bad, have no result ; this world does not exist ; as 
little does the future world exist ; there are no 
beings of supernatural birth. As for man, that com- 
pound of the four elements, when his time has 
come, earth returns to the bulk of the earth, the 
water to the bulk of the water, the fire to the bulk 
of the fire, the wind to the bulk of the wind ; the 
organs of sense reascend to the ether ; four men 
carry the coffin containing the dead body as far 
as the rules for the cremation of corpses pre- 
scribe ; the bones become of a dirty white colour ; 
the good deeds perish in the flames of the funeral 
pile. Those who maintain that something still 
exists are, whether ignorant or wise, decomposed 
and annihilated after death. There is no mur- 
derer, no instigator of the murder, no listening 
being, no speaking being, no knowing being, no 
teaching being. When a man cuts off a head 
with a sword, that deed is not one being depriving 
another of life ; only, between the head and the 
trunk, the sword encounters an empty space.'* 

* Extract from the 1 Samanna phala Sutta,' in Burnouf s 
' Lotus de la Bonne Loi,' pp. 456, 457. 



FIRST WORKS ON BUDDHISM. 



77 



Is this a strange mockery ? Is it negation 
carried to the extreme, with the object of striking 
terror into the human conscience, and bringing it 
back to faith ? It is both. Buddhism delights 
in contradictions ; the Buddha came to deliver 
men from false fancies, by teaching them that 
nothing exists. ' Just as, when a man is troubled 
by evil dreams and cries out in his sleep, his 
parents and friends call out to him : <£ Have 
no fear, have no fear," so the blessed Buddhas 
teach the law to creatures disturbed by the four 
kinds of delusions. "There is," they say, "neither 
man, nor woman, nor creature, nor life, nor spirit, 
nor person ; these conditions have no reality ; 
they are all the production of fancy ; they all 
resemble an illusion, a dream, something fac- 
titious, like the image of the moon reflected in 
the water." Human creatures, having heard this 
teaching, see all conditions free from passion ; 
they see them devoid of error, having no nature 
of their own. With their thoughts resting on 
space, those creatures, as though they had accom- 
plished their time, enter completely into the 
domain of the nirvana, where no trace is left of 
the aggregation of the constituent elements of 
existence.'* 

' Having completely raised himself above the 
idea of form, the idea of resistance having vanished, 
the idea of diversity being no longer conceivable 

* Extract from the 'Vinaya Sutra,' in Burnouf's 'Intro- 
duction a l'Histoire du Buddhisme indien,' p. 545. 



78 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



for him, the hermit, having reached the region 
of infinity in space, where he says to himself, 
" Space is infinite," stops there. Having com- 
pletely raised himself above the region of infinity 
in space, after having reached the region of in- 
finity in intelligence, where he says to himself, 
" Intelligence is infinite," he stops there. Having 
completely raised himself above the region of in- 
finity in intelligence, having reached the region 
where absolutely nothing exists, and where he says 
to himself, " There exists absolutely nothing," he 
stops there. Having completely raised himself 
above the region where there exists absolutely 
nothing, having reached the region where there 
are neither ideas nor absence of ideas, he stops 
there. Having completely raised himself above 
the region where there are neither ideas nor 
absence of ideas, having reached cessation of both 
idea and perception, he stops there.'* The ascetic 
is now no more thinking than non-thinking ; 
he is neutral as regards ideas and as regards the 
absence of ideas alike. 

' The man who walks in the perfection of 
wisdom must not stop at form, any more than at 
sensation, any more than at idea, any more than 
at conceptions, any more than at knowledge. 
Why so ? It is that if he stop at form he walks 
in the belief that form exists ; he walks not in the 
perfection of wisdom. And in like manner, if he 

* Extract from the ' Saggiti Sutta,' at the end of the ' Lotus 
de la Bonne Loi,' p. 809. 



FIRST WORKS ON BUDDHISM. 



79 



stop at sensation, idea, conceptions, knowledge, 
he walks in the belief that all these exist ; he walks 
not in the perfection of wisdom. Not achieving 
the perfection of wisdom, he will not attain 
omniscience, because he believes he can reach that 
which cannot be reached. Why so ? It is that 
in the perfection of wisdom form is not grasped, 
and that the same applies to sensation, to idea, 
to conceptions, to knowledge. The perfection of 
wisdom itself is not grasped ; omniscience itself is 
not grasped. The name of Buddha is but a 
word ; the Buddha himself is like unto an illusion; 
the conditions that constitute the Buddha re- 
semble an illusion, a dream. The Buddha can- 
not be conceived as having beginning, end, or 
middle. Why so ? It is that he cannot be con- 
ceived at all. His form being without limit, the 
Buddha must be looked upon as something 
illimitable.'* 

Logic carried to the utmost, upsetting at one 
stroke all affirmations, whether positive, nega- 
tive, or indifferent — such is Buddhism. With it 
everything passes away: God, the world, the 
Buddha, man, mind, nature. Truth is unspeak- 
able, invisible, because it is void itself. t Every 
thesis is propounded in three different manners — 
the one affirmative, the other negative, the third 
neither affirmative nor negative. Each of them 

* ' Introduction a l'Histoire du Buddhisme indien,' pp. 469- 
481. E. Burnouf. 

f ' Lalitavistara,' pp. 364, 368. Foucaux. 



So NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



is then equally dismissed, because the adoption of 
either means the rejection of the two others. 
And the sage, perceiving that embracing one 
opinion means disagreeing with the others, gives 
up the task without adopting any.* For instance, 
to this question : ' Does the Buddha exist after 
death, or does he not ?' it should be replied : ' The 
Buddha exists after death ; the Buddha does not 
exist after death ; the Buddha exists and does not 
exist after death ; the Buddha is no more existent 
than he is non-existent after death.' To every 
question the sage thus replies by affirmation and 
negation, either separately or conjointly : ' No, it 
is not so ; no, it is not otherwise ; no, it is not 
true that it is so ; no, it is not true that it is not 
because it is not so.'t To err is to regard as 
durable that which is but transient, and to attri- 
bute reality to that which only exists in imagina- 
tion. 

This act of the human consciousness, in which 
self-inspection ends merely in self-destruction, 
is one of the most extraordinary phenomena of 
history. It is difficult to imagine the strange 
impression produced by this ever identical 
thought, this eternal circle revolving round itself, 
and fatally leading to the stupefaction of thought ; 
it is the witches' dance of logic, the humming of 
a void like that of a hollow top. The wheel is 

* ' Introduction a l'Histoire du Buddhisme indien,' p. 458. 
E. Burnouf. 

f E. Burnouf, ' Le Lotus de la Bonne Loi,' pp. 459, 460. 



FIRST WORKS ON BUDDHISM. 81 



a correct image of this eternal tautology. The 
wheel is the perfect symbol of Buddhistic 
countries. The devotees always hold in their 
hands a wheel, which they set spinning ; there 
are some large ones, which are put in motion 
with the arms ; others are set to work by streams ; 
others, placed on the housetops, are kept moving 
by the wind ; others again, hung up over the 
fireplace, are worked by the smoke. On their 
circumference is inscribed the formula : ' Om mani 
padme houm /' (' Hail to thee, pearl enclosed in 
the lotus !') This formula seems to be the 
rhythm of pulsation of Buddhistic life, from one 
end of Asia to the other. Men and women, old 
people and children, laymen and monks are ever 
repeating it on the beads of an endless rosary. 
Engraved over the doors, it also hangs in long 
streamers from one house to the other, from one 
tree to another ; sometimes, crossing over a stream 
or a ravine, it unites two mountains, casting on 
the valley an ever-moving shadow. It may be 
read on the bark of trees, on rocks, on heaps 
of stones, on dried-up human skulls or shoulder- 
blades, on fragments of skeletons heaped up by 
the side of public roads. It is the first sentence a 
child pronounces ; like a perpetual murmur it 
resounds through cities and deserts alike ; the 
caravans measure their steps by these mystic 
syllables. No other sound is heard from those 
bands of disciples who spend their lives in going 

6 



82 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



the round of the Soumeru.* ' From the sea of 
Japan to the frontiers of Persia,' says a missionary,t 
' a long and uninterrupted murmur agitates all 
people, animates all ceremonies, is the symbol 
of all beliefs, the accompaniment to all festivi- 
ties. The trunk of the Buddhistic religion covers 
a great part of the world with its gigantic branches, 
and everywhere this prayer is the vehicle of 
its life and of the movements that animate it.' 

Such a nihilism is revolting to us ; for in our eyes 
life is worth living. But to the Hindu life is an 
evil ; rest, non-existence, is the first of blessings. 
According to Buddhism, nothing exists except 
eternal nature, which manifests itself in two ways 
— existence {pravritti), and rest or non - being 
(nirvritti). The creation and the destruction of 
worlds and of individuals are the result of the 
infinite succession of these two states of nature. 
All compounds are perishable ; deeds alone are 
eternal by their consequences. Animated beings, 

* The northern part of the Meru (the chief of mounts) 
as opposed to Koumeru, its southern part. The dimensions 
of that fabulous mountain are, according to the ' Vishnu 
Purana,' in height 84,000 yojanas ; its depth below the 
surface of the earth is 16,000. Its diameter at the summit 
32,000 yojanas ; and, at its base, 16,000 ; so that its shape 
is that of an inverted cone. The ydjana is, according to 
some, equivalent to nine miles ; according to others, five only. 
Lieut. -Colonel Cunningham ('Journal of the Royal Asiatic 
Society of Great Britain,' 1843, No. 14) calculated its exact 
measure at seven miles. — Translator's Note. 

f LAbb^ Gabet, Journal Asiatique, May, 1847, p. 462 and 
following. 



FIRST WORKS ON BUDDHISM. %' 83 



among which the highest is man, are capable, by 
their efforts, of attaining the supreme felicity of 
non-being, and of escaping the necessity of re- 
appearing in the fleeting phenomena of existence. 
One becomes Buddha when one has thus succeeded 
in proclaiming that nothing exists, in abdicating 
one's own individuality, in seeking nothing, not 
even rest, in acknowledging that all is vanity — even 
Buddha's law.* Then, free from all illusion, one 
enters upon a state of perfect indifference, in which 
pleasure and happiness become meaningless ; a 
state of apathy in which physical life is almost 
reduced to the function of respiration, in which 
intellectual life consists in the continuance of pure 
intelligence, released from all its tasks. Seven de- 
grees lead to that supreme end. Eliminating little 
by little all transient data, all conceptions of multi- 
plicity and diversity, one must proclaim succes- 
sively that there is no space, no intelligence, no 
ideas ; even this is not sufficient, one must main- 
tain that there is not even absence of ideas, nor 
absence of absence of ideas, and so on for ever. 
Nothingness has too much body for those wor- 
shippers of absolute void ; they feel the necessity 
of denying it, like all the rest. It is the negation 
of negation. 

The fundamental idea of Buddhism is the pre- 
eminence of man over all the rest of the universe. 
To come to life again as a god is an evil.t The 

* E. Burnouf, ' Le Lotus de la Bonne Loi/ pp. 167, 168. 
f Ibid., p. 50. 

6—2 



84 IfEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



great aim for all beings is to become men, 
and, that condition once obtained, to become 
monks.* The thought of the sage moves the 
earth ; meditation creates the world ; creations of 
worlds are the result of the behaviour of the 
moral beings who inhabit them,t not the work 
of a creating God. The Bodhisatva Gadgadas- 
vara plunges himself in such deep meditation, 
that all of a sudden eighty-four times a hundred 
thousand myriads of kotis% of lotuses appear. 
Never was moral strength exaggerated to such 
an extent. Hell is created by sin. The most 
virtuous and the wisest is the mightiest. It is by 
his own strength that man rises above nature ; he 
owes nothing but to himself. 

Buddhistic books doindeed make mention of gods 
or devas. But these are beings like so many others, 
inferior to man — kinds of elves or goblins, with- 
out any metaphysical signification, from which, 
owing to their complete ignorance of physics, the 
Buddhists were unable to free themselves. The 
first step to becoming the guide of the world is to 
refuse to acknowledge the gods.§ The gods come 

° E. Burnouf, ' Introduction a l'Histoire du Buddhisme 
indien,' p. 368. 

f Since, according to Buddhistic metempsychosis, fresh 
incarnation is the punishment of misdeeds, and before 
entering a man's body (which is its only means of salvation) 
the soul must have migrated through the bodies of in- 
numerable animals or plants. — Translator's Note. 

% According to Hindu numeration, the koti is equal to ten 
millions. — Translator's Note. 

§ E. Burnouf, ' Le Lotus de la Bonne Loi,' p. 581. 



FIRST WORKS ON BUDDHISM. 



35 



respectfully to listen to Buddha and form his re- 
tinue ; they are but one of the circles of transmigra- 
tion ; they die like men, and the Bodhisatva, out of 
charity, becomes a deva, so as to preach to and 
convert the devas. It is the Buddha who teaches 
the devas, like all other beings, to cast off the 
burden of their nature and enter upon the great 
rest. Brahma himself, in order to obtain deliver- 
ance, needs the aid of Sakya. One of the most 
peculiar passages of the Lalitavistdra is that in 
which Sakya's parents desire to take him to the 
temple of the gods. Sakya begins to laugh ; he 
reminds them that at his birth the gods have 
worshipped him. ' Where is the god equal or 
superior to me, who am the god of gods ? He 
who belongs to a great race and carries the signs 
of nobility does not bow before gods, whoever 
they may be.' The gods approve that pride in 
the child, and say : ' The Meru does not bow 
before the mustard-seed. The sun and the moon 
do not bow before the glow-worm.'* 

In this manner beings pass through all the 
stages of the universe, until they arrive at the full 
control of themselves : it is the state of the Bod- 
hisatva, the last stage to be gone through before 
reaching nothingness. Then comes death, through 
which the Buddha is complete. Every million of 
years there appears a privileged being who teaches 
men the road to rest and the law by which to 
reach it. That law is not eternal. The successor 
Foucaux, ' Lalitavistara,' pp. 114-116. 



86 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



to Sakya-Mouni is already selected ; it will be 
Maitreya, who is now pursuing through a series of 
universes the course of his evolutions. 

This masterpiece of human power is accom- 
plished by science. The Buddha is the 'learned/ 
the ' gnostic,'* who, by his adequate science, 
breaks the spell of error, raises himself above 
nature, and commands it. He sees all in the 
thousands of worlds, as a piercing eye might 
see" the fishes, the shells, the sand, and the aquatic 
plants at the bottom of a lake. ' In the same 
manner as the two parts forming a box are 
contained and limited by each other, so with the 
Buddha, the object of knowledge and the know- 
ledge he possesses of it are contained by each 
other and within the same limits.' The nirvana 
is the supreme equation, the endless intuition of 
absolute identity. 

The questions which European criticism raises 
about the nature of the nirvana, proceed from the 
discrepancy between the words and ideas of 
Hindu mythology and our own categories. t Is 
the nirvana simply the release from outward cir- 
cumstances ? Is it a state in which man feels 
within himself but the universal existence in 
whose bosom co-exist all the parts of the uni- 

* The word Buddha has exactly the same meaning as 
■yvinjcriicog. I come more and more to think that gnosticism, 
particularly the gnosticism that we find in Plotinus, non- 
Christian gnosticism, is an offshoot of Buddhism. 

f See especially E. Burnouf's ' Introduction al'Histoire du 
Buddhisme indien,' p. 516 and following. 



FIRST WORKS ON BUDDHISM. 



8/ 



verse? In that state does man preserve the 
feeling of his personality and his activity? Is 
there any distinction between the nirvana and 
absolute existence? Is it pure negation? Those 
questions are solved differently according to the 
different schools, or rather they are devoid of 
meaning for Buddhists, who are quite astonished 
when questioned on that subject. 'The nirvana,'' 
they invariably reply, ' is absorption, deliverance 
from movement, release from the control of 
causes and effects, rest — that is, non-being.' 
The circle is complete when one can say: 
'Existence exists no more for me; I shall 
never see another existence.' The nirvana is 
immunity from being, absolute void, the 
space wanting its four dimensions, wherefrom 
are excluded both the existence and the non- 
existence of things, where are seen neither 
objects to be admitted nor subjects to admit 
them, where all principles are put aside, because 
the illusory character of every principle leads 
to none being admitted — in a word, it is the 
negation of both the subject and the object, 
and consequently it is absolute rest. To reach 
that state, human intellect must be freed from all 
that may perturb it ; all emotions are to be 
avoided; all pursuits are to be given up; all in- 
tellectual discussions relative to the qualities of 
things are to be waived ; all wishes and desires 
are to be foregone ; mirth and sadness are alike 
to be put away. The being that has attained 



88 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



this summit, whose ideas are unfettered — having 
cast off the burden of thought — having severed the 
ties that bound it to the universe, and completely 
mastered its own inward self — having reached 
a unity similar to the uniform surface of the 
firmament — having entered upon the meditation 
called 'the place of endless meditation,'* of all 
the functions of life preserves but respiration. 
* It is a mind contemplative, perfected, purified, 
luminous, free from blots, exempt from vice, 
supple, capable of any deed, stable, arrived at 
impassibility.' 

The aim of life is therefore to withdraw one's 
self from the intellectual and moral condition of 
mankind by meditation, or rather by the fan- 
tastic exercise of imagination. The legend of the 
dried-up Arhdn, in ' Hiouen-Thsang,' t is charac- 
teristic of that complete desiccation of the being 
which, for the Buddhist, constitutes perfection. 

' Two hundred li % west from the capital, there 
is a great mountain bristling with bold and steep 
rocks, on the top of which rises a stoupa.§ 
This is what tradition says : 

* E. Burnouf, ' Le Lotus de la Bonne Loi,' p. 3. 
f Stanislas Julien, 'Histoire de Hiouen-Thsang,' p. 275 
and following. 

£ The li is a Chinese topographical measure ; its value was, 
in Hiouen-Thsang's time, equal to the distance which an 
average man can walk in five minutes. Five li are equal to 
1643 metres, or a little more than the English mile (1609 
metres).— Translator's Note. 

§ Stoupa, a shrine.— Translator's Note. 



FIRST WORKS ON BUDDHISM. 



89 



' Several hundred years ago, the thunder roared 
and destroyed part of the mountain, the grottoes 
of which sheltered a bhikchou* of extraordinary 
size, who was seated with his eyes closed ; his 
hair and his beard, falling in thick locks, covered 
his shoulders and his face. Some wood-fellers 
went to inform the king of the occurrence; and 
he hastened to go to look at him, and do him 
homage. The news having spread, the magis- 
trates and the people — an immense crowd — 
rushed from all parts to do homage to the 
bhikchou, who was soon surrounded by heaps of 
flowers. 

' " Who is this man?" inquired the king. "He 
is," answered a monk, " a lo-han (arhdn) who has 
left his family, and who, having extinguished the 
principle of thought, has entered upon complete 
ecstasy. Since then, many years have elapsed. 
That is why his hair has grown so wonderfully 
long." " How can we wake him, and make him 
get up?" inquired the king. " When a man," said 
the monk, " comes out of ecstasy, after having for 
many long years been deprived of food, his body 
will soon fall into decomposition. We must first 
moisten him with cream and milk, so as to 
lubricate his muscles. Afterwards, we shall 
strike the gong, in order to startle and rouse 
him." 

' In accordance with the monk's advice, the 

* A hermit, and more especially a religious mendicant. — 
Translator's Note. 



9o NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



corpse was at once besprinkled with milk, and 
the gong was struck. The arhdn opened his 
eyes, and, looking around, asked : " Who are 
you all wearing religious garments?" "We are 
bhikchous" they all replied. " Where is now," 
retorted the arhdn, "my master Kia-che-po-jou-lai 
(Kacyapatathagata) ?" # It is a long, long time," 
they answered, "since he entered upon the nie-pan 
{nirvana)." 

' Upon hearing these words, he gave a cry of 
pain ; then he went on : " Did Chi-kia-wen-fo 
(Sakya-Mouni Buddha) succeed in reaching com- 
plete, unsurpassed intelligence?" "Yes, indeed; 
and, after procuring happiness for all creatures, 
he entered upon silence and extinction." 

' Hearing this, the arhan* cast his eyes down ; 
then, after a long pause, he raised his long hair 
with his hand, and rose majestically in the air. 
Then, by a divine miracle, appeared a fiery orb, 
which consumed his body, and his bones fell on 
the ground. The king and the monks of the great 
assembly gathered his relics together and erected 
a stoilpa. It is the mound of which we have been 
speaking.' 

Materialism, scepticism, atheism — this, then, 
is the summary of what may be called the 
Buddhism of the books. It is, indeed, the only 
instance in the history of mankind of negation 
assuming a religious import. When Father Horace 

* A person holding a high rank in Buddhistic hierarchy. — 
Translator's Note. 



FIRST WORKS ON BUDDHISM. 



91 



inquired from the Buddhists of Thibet ' What is 
God ?' they imperturbably replied : ' God is the 
Assembly of Saints.' An atheistic philosophy 
has founded a religious tradition unequalled as 
regards its duration and the number of its 
adherents. 

This fact of atheism becoming a religion is so 
truly amazing that we require the best authority 
on the subject before accepting it. The cautious 
mind of Eugene Burnouf did not fear to express 
the most decided affirmation with regard to it.* 
' I imagine,' says he, ' that on entering upon 
religious life Sakya-Mouni started from the ideas 
furnished by the atheistic doctrines of the 
Samkhya, which were in ontology, the absence 
of God, the multiplicity and eternity of human 
souls ; and, in physics, the existence of an eternal 
nature, endowed with qualities, transforming itself, 
and possessing the elements of the shapes assumed 
by the soul of man in the course of its journey 
through the world. From that doctrine Sakya- 
Mouni borrowed the idea of the non-existence of 
God, as well as the theory of the multiplicity of 
human souls, that of transmigration, and that of 
the nirvana, or deliverance, which last belonged in 
common to all Brahminic schools. But it is not 
easy to see to-day what he understood by the 
nirvana, as he nowhere defines it. Yet, as he 
never speaks of God, the nirvana could not have 

* ' Introduction. a l'Histoire du Buddhisme indien," pp. 
520, 521. 



92 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



meant to him the absorption of the individual soul 
in the bosom of a universal God, as understood by 
orthodox Brahmins ; and as he does not mention 
matter, his nirvana cannot mean the dissolution 
of the human soul into physical elements. The 
word void, which appears already on the monu- 
ments which are proved to have been the oldest, 
induces me to think that Sakya saw supreme 
good in complete annihilation of the principle of 
thought. He pictured it to himself, to use an 
often repeated comparison, as the gradual extinc- 
tion of the light in a lamp which is going out.' 

The void — this is, indeed, the key- word of 
Buddhism. To understand the void is the 
supreme science. Meditation is the aim of life ; 
but meditation is to know ' that the law is void, 
does not exist, is not coming, has not been, is 
inexpressible.'* The Sutra of causes, which 
Burnouf translated from beginning to end,f and 
in which may be seen the type of Buddha's teach- 
ings, is like a machine destined to produce a 
vacuum in the soul, by pointing out birth as the 
sole cause of all evils. Buddha shall deliver from 
birth the innumerable beings subject to be born 
by their nature. Having completely freed created 
beings from old age, from death, from disease, 
from corruption, from despair, from miseries, from 
anxieties, having taken them across the ocean of 
migratory life, he shall place them in the region 

* Eugene Burnouf's ' Lotus de la Bonne Loi,' p. 169. 
f Ibid., Appendix to the * Lotus/ p. 534 and following. 



FIRST WORKS ON BUDDHISM. 



93 



of imperishable nature, happy, without fear, 
exempt from trouble and pain, calm, free from 
passion and death.* 

' No more attached to anything than the dew- 
drop to the lotus-leaf ; prizing gold no more than 
a lump of earth ; considering infinite space and 
the palm of the hand as equal ; having the same 
indifference for sandal-wood and the hatchet that 
chops it ; turning his back upon existence, gain, 
honours — the Buddha sees as it is the reunion of 
the three worlds. This world, to his eyes, is not 
created and does not die ; it does not disappear 
and does not come to life; it does not revolve in the 
circle of transmigration, and does not enter upon 
complete annihilation ; we cannot say that it has 
been, nor that it has not been ; it is not existing and 
it is not non-existing ; it is not thus, yet it is not 
otherwise ; it is not erroneously, yet it is not 
really ; it is not otherwise and it is not thus. 
It is in this way that the Buddha perceives the 
reunion of the three worlds. 't 

Of all this nothing belongs peculiarly to Budd- 
hism. Let us recall the definition of the state 
of liberation according to Nyaya : ' The state of 
liberation is like the state of perfect insensibility 
of a man soundly sleeping, undisturbed by any 
dreams. 'J 

Thus, for Hinduism as for Christianity, the per- 

* E. Foucaux's ' Lalitavistara,' p. 215. 

t E. Burnouf's 'Lotus,' p. 193. 

t Journal des Savants, June, 1853, p. 342. 



94 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



ception of the vanity of all things is the beginning 
of wisdom ; but after ' all is vanity/ Buddhism, 
having no Supreme God, cannot add, like the 
author of the ' Imitation,' ' except loving and 
serving God.' In Buddhistic legends, nearly all 
conversions are due to the sight of something 
horrible."* A short time after his marriage, the 
young Sakya is taking a walk in his pleasure- 
garden. He meets with an old man. The Bod- 
hisatva, perceiving him, says to his coachman :t 
' Who is this, coachman ? What is the meaning 
of this weak and undersized creature, with dried- 
up flesh, with muscles stuck to his skin, with 
white hair, chattering teeth, thin and shrivelled- 
up body, who, leaning on a stick, totters painfully 
along ?' The coachman answers : ' My lord, that 
man is overburdened with age ; his senses are 
weakened, suffering has destroyed his energy, he 
is despised by his relations, and without a guide ; 
useless in business, he is abandoned in the forest 
like a heap of dead wood.' The Bodhisatva re- 
torts : ' Is that the rule in his family, or is it that 
of all the creatures of this world ? Speak ! tell me 
quickly what the fact is. Having been informed of 
its significance, I will reflect upon the origin of all 
this.' The coachman replies : ' My lord, it is 

* Read the touching episodes of Kunala and Vitacoka in 
Burnouf's ' Introduction a l'Histoire du Buddhisme indien,' 
pp. 404 and following, 415 and following ; as also the strange 
vision of the cemetery in Foucaux's ' Lalitavistara/ p. 197 
and following. 

f Foucaux's ' Lalitavistara,' pp. 182, 183. 



FIRST WORKS ON BUDDHISM. 



95 



neither the law of his family, nor that of the king- 
dom. With every creature youth will be van- 
quished by age. Your father, your mother, the 
crowd of your relations and kinsmen will end by 
being old; there is no other end for created 
beings.' The Bodhisatva says : ' Then, coachman, 
young and ignorant beings, of unsound judgment, 
proud of the youth which intoxicates them, do not 
foresee old age. As for me, I will depart. Turn my 
carriage quickly. If I also am destined to grow 
old, what have I to do with joy and pleasure? 
Go back ; I will think of how to achieve deliver- 
ance.' 

All this is indeed a true fruit of India, that 
country where life is in turn a golden dream and a 
nightmare, a sombre hell and a dazzling paradise. 
Voluptuousness and abnegation are near neigh- 
bours. The ascetic who, haunted by the fear of 
existence, inflicts torments upon himself in order 
to escape it, does not belong to another race than 
he who acts according to Krishna's voluptuous 
legend. Krishna, incarnation of pleasure and 
sensual abandonment, ideal of a mild, unenergetic 
people, exposed to all the seductions of nature, is, 
at heart, brother to Sakya-Mouni. The frolics of 
Krishna with the shepherdesses of the Bradj have 
something in common with the enervating abne- 
gations of Buddhism ; both imply complete ignor- 
ance of the true aim of life, or rather a false idea of 
science and the powers of man. For India, con- 
scious existence has no superior resulting power ; 



96 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



everybody is free, according to his taste, to find it 
delightful as an idyl, or dreadful as the torture- 
chamber. According to us, the world, through the 
reason, the activity, the suffering of man, pursues 
an ideal end of justice and righteousness. The 
most victimized of creatures has helped, if only by 
its tears, to raise an eternal structure ; it has a 
ground for hope and consolation. 

In speaking of Buddhism, one may appear 
paradoxical, though only bringing together the 
plainest texts. This frightful nihilism, which 
would seem among us the height of impiety, issues 
in a very lofty morality. This strange Messiah 
speaks of the kingdom of God almost like the 
Galilean Messiah. ' My abode is the strength of 
charity; my garment is the robe of patience ; the 
void is my seat ; it is from that seat I teach the 
law to all creatures.'* The name of the supreme 
virtue of Buddhism, maltri, can only be translated 
by the word ' charity.' Self-sacrifice and devotion 
carried even to suicide, heroic almsgiving, such 
are the most salient features of all the legends 
relating to Sakya-Mouni. Once he sacrifices the 
ten thousand heads he has possessed in previous 
existences ; at another time, he cuts off his hand, 
his feet, his head, to give them to some unfortu- 
nates. It is out of compassion for creatures that 
he, for the last time, accepts the condition of 
humanity. He constantly repeats the maxim, 
* Delivered, deliver; having crossed to the other side, 
* E. Burnoufs ' Lotus de la Bonne Loi,' p. 144. 



FIRST WORKS ON BUDDHISM. 



help others to cross it ; consoled, console others ; 
having entered upon complete nirvana, enable 
others to attain it.'* The demon tempts him by 
offering him the nirvana at once ; he refuses until, 
by his preaching, he has saved the beings placed 
under the control of birth, age, disease and death. 

Like a father who sees his children playing in a 
house already on fire, the Buddha sees his crea- 
tures burnt, consumed, devoured by birth, death, 
lamentations, despair — the prey of desires and the 
evils which result from them, unceasingly coming 
to life in hell and in the womb of animals, 
doomed to pass through the state of gods and 
men ; and, in the midst of that accumulation of 
trials and sufferings, they play, divert, enjoy them- 
selves — they do not tremble, do not think how 
wretched and miserable they are. Then the 
Buddha says to himself : ' I am the father of all 
these beings ; I want to deliver them ; I will give 
them the incomparable blessing of science.' And 
he calls out to them : - Do not amuse yourselves 
in the midst of all those shapes, those sounds, 
those odours, those tastes, those miserable con- 
tacts ; for, while attached to this world, you are 
consumed by the thirst accompanying the five 
sorts of desire.' Blinded by their pleasures and 
pursuits, men refuse to believe him and to follow 
him out of the house which is in flames. The 
Buddha has recourse to stratagems ; he entices 

Legend of Puma in Burnouf's ' Introduction a l'Histoire 
du Buddhisme indien,' p. 248 and following. 

7 



98 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



them by means of toys, which are the various 
stages of his law, and the more or less tangible 
shapes which it assumes to accommodate itself to 
human weakness. 

Here certainly is the lofty side of Buddhism. 
This atheistic religion has been eminently moral 
and beneficial. It is Catholicism without God. 
India knows no measure, in self-devotion or in 
anything else. She has gone to the extreme. 
One cannot help smiling at the efforts of the 
Buddha to convert serpents, birds, vampires, 
harpies, and all the fantastic beings with which 
Indian imagination has peopled the world. But 
that spirit of sympathy was the cause of the ex- 
traordinary proselytism which inspired Buddhistic 
missionaries, and with which the conquests of 
monotheistic religions can alone be compared. 
Brahminism, the doctrines of Zoroaster and of 
Confucius, only had national destinies.* Sakya- 
Mouni's apostles, on the contrary, believed that 
the world must become Buddhistic, and in this 
they were but half deceived. The least satisfactory 
doctrine which man ever dreamed of, captivated 
the most diverse countries. A religion which 
seemed only intended for the most refined sceptics 
— the least intelligible, the least consoling of all 
religions — became the creed of races most uncouth 
till then. The gentle manners of those ■ pious 

* Brahminism made proselytes beyond India (see further 
on p. 162 and following), but their number does not bear 
comparison with those of Buddhism. 



FIRST WORKS ON BUDDHISM. 



99 



atheists, and the generally urbane character of 
their preaching, were the cause of their popularity. 
The Vedas, severe and exclusive, could never 
have succeeded in performing such miracles. The 
people embrace a religion only for its outward 
appearance. Few are theologians. It is not re- 
ligious metaphysics that give efficiency to propa- 
ganda. The affability and the kindness of those 
good monks threw a veil over their philosophy, a 
philosophy of which they themselves were per- 
haps scarcely aware. In like manner, Krishna's 
success must be ascribed to his meek and sympa- 
thetic physiognomy. That amiable and charm- 
ing shepherd supplanted the austere Mouni, and 
proved once more that the gods of the Meru, like 
those of Olympus, were not eternal gods. 

III. 

The foundation of a religion is an historical rather 
than a doctrinal fact. The clear perception we 
have of Buddhistic philosophy hardly explains its 
establishment. The character of its founder is 
enveloped in obscurity. On the other hand, the 
circumstances attending the birth of the new 
school are easily understood. At Benares, on the 
banks of the Ganges and the Jumna, probably in 
the course of the fifth century before Christ, arose 
the doctrine which openly proclaimed its pro- 
gramme to be the deliverance of mankind from 
the tyranny of desire. It long remained an 

7—2 



ioo NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



obscure sect, a platonic protest in favour of 
religious equality, an order of mendicant friars 
among many others. It only assumed a political 
importance when, towards the middle of the third 
century before Christ, King Acoka accepted as laws 
the principles which, till then, had only been 
objects of meditation for a few ascetics. 

It is absolutely beyond doubt that Buddhism 
was the offspring of a vast movement of philo- 
sophical sects. With the speculative power 
always alive in her, India had discussed all pro- 
blems, tried all sorts of solutions. The movement 
was at first limited to the higher classes; gradually 
it stirred the masses. A theory at last obtained 
great popularity ; it seemed to solve most satis- 
factorily the eternal question of being and life in 
the universe. Sakya adopted it most decidedly ; 
but he does not appear to have invented it. The 
world is perpetually changing ; all beings go 
through successive forms of existence ; deeds 
alone are eternal and transmitted from life to life. 
Existence is thus but a trial, a kind of purgatory, 
from which we are freed by annihilation, which 
keeps us from the law of change. Sakya, or 
rather his disciples, promised to take men through 
the defiles of existence. ' Begin by leaving your 
family,' they said to the adept ; ' apply yourself to 
Buddha's law ; annihilate the army of death, as 
an elephant upsets a hut of reeds. He who shall, 
undisturbed, walk according to the dictates of that 
law, escaping birth and the revolutions of the 



FIRST WORKS ON BUDDHISM. 



101 



world, will put an end to pain. The law of 
miserable existence is closed to him ; the pure 
road to heaven is opened to him ; he has reached 
the other shore of the sea of trouble.' 

It would be an error to believe that the part 
played by Sakya-Mouni required great originality. 
Sakya was a hermit like many others, a philo- 
sopher like many others, having certain practices 
and a mode of teaching of his own. He did 
not admit the extravagant mortifications of the 
Brahmins ; he used to seat himself comfortably, 
and recommended that condition as necessary for 
rest ; he was dressed decently, and strongly blamed 
the acts of the gymnosofihists,* whose sole garment 
was space. With as much truth as of Jesus, we 
may say of Sakya-Mouni that what we know best 
about him is his way of speaking. The form of 
teaching adopted by Sakya is pretty faithfully pre- 
served in the Sutras ; it was a kind of animated 
conversation, analogous to the dialectic of Socrates, 
in which the master gradually brought his hearer 
to' acknowledge the negation of all and the infinite 
chain of causes ; it was long, diffuse, full of repe 
titions and beating about the bush, such as oral 
teaching requires. The speech was interspersed 
with parables set forth in a style easy, popular, 
expressive, and touching. From all this resulted 
a certain character of mediocrity, an absence of 
literary artifice, that inaugurated a revolution 

° From the Greek yvp-voao^iari^ a sect of Indian philo- 
sophers. — Translator's Note. 



io2 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



similar to that which the plain, simple, and clear 
language of the New Testament brought about 
among the Grseco-Latin peoples. At the outset, a 
new religion is often but a new kind of literature. 
Mahomet was indebted for his success to the 
revolution he caused in Arabian eloquence by the 
rhymed prose of his Koran. 

In the process of popularization, every advance 
is a fall. It has often been remarked that our 
modern tongues, so inferior in beauty to ancient 
languages, are far better adapted to the expres- 
sion of popular feelings, and correspond with the 
advent of Christianity, by which moral culture, 
till then the appanage of a select few, was 
made accessible to all. Classical stiffness gave 
way. The new-born child wanted gruel ; the 
strong meat of antiquity did not agree with it. 
When ideas spread, they lose their grandeur. 
But the eternal mind, which takes advantage of 
all circumstances, knows how to derive from 
these recoils sufficient force to make a fresh leap. 

Castes formed the basis of Hindu society. 
Originally instituted as an heroic precaution for 
preserving the thin streamlet of Aryan blood in 
the midst of an ocean of Allophylian * races, caste 
had brought about this result : the Brahmin 
was the only religious being. The masses had 
thus to labour under the most painful sense of 
inferiority ; they were considered as having no 

° From the Greek dXXog = another, and 0uA?)=a tribe. — 
Translator's Note. 



FIRST WORKS ON BUDDHISM. 



souls, and, as a matter of course, requiring no 
salvation. From that resulted an aristocracy, 
the proudest of all — the aristocracy of meditation; 
birth exclusively conferred religious capacity. 
The mere fact of Sakya being a Kchatria, not a 
Brahmin, dealt a mortal blow to that system. 
Another fact of no less importance was that truths 
which until then had been the privilege of certain 
classes were made current coin. Discussions, which 
the Brahmins confined to the higher circles of 
society, were thus placed within the reach of the 
masses. Sakya spoke to all in a familiar language, 
clear, prolix, more analytical yet less learned than 
classical Sanscrit. The law of religions is, 
indeed, the same as that of languages. They con- 
stantly, so to speak, lose their nobleness, and be- 
come democratic. The most insipid legend is 
always the most modern, being made for the greater 
number. Sakya turned everything to account. Like 
most reformers, he sought his followers amongst 
the dregs of society. He beckoned to the humble 
and the sinners. He was often reproached with 
showing preference for the miserable and the 
criminal. A young Brahmin, whom his father 
never could teach to read the Vedas, became an 
excellent disciple of Sakya. Buddhism was thus 
an easy sort of devotion, readily accepted by 
feeble minds, as by those who feared the yoke of 
caste and the difficulties of Brahminical studies. 
The criticisms of the Buddhists upon the Brahmins 
and their worldly ways remind us of the attitude 



jo4 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



taken, in the Middle Ages, by the pious aris- 
tocracy of mendicant friars towards the haughty 
ways of the official clergy. 

But it was chiefly owing to the influence it 
exercised over the poor and the unhappy that 
Buddhism succeeded. Numerous texts testify 
that beggars embraced the new sect as a means 
of livelihood. The ascetic's robe raised them in 
their own eyes, restored their self-esteem. In an 
Indian comedy, an unlucky gambler consoles 
himself by remarking that he still has the resource 
of becoming a Buddhist. ' Then,' says he, ' will I 
walk, with head erect, on the highroad.' The 
fact of a slave embracing the religious life liberated 
him. Numbers of legends signify that it is much 
easier for the poor than for the rich to attain faith. 
A god, wishing to become a monk, complains of 
his exalted condition. ' For,' says he, 'it is difficult 
to embrace the religious life, if one comes of a 
lofty race ; but it is easy if of low extraction.' A 
sudden misfortune also often occasions some 
striking conversion, which makes a saint of a 
worldling. 

The revolution with which Sakya's name is 
associated was therefore a revolution in favour of 
equality. ' For an invitation or a marriage,' says 
Acoka, 'the caste is inquired into ; not so when it 
is a question of the law ; for virtues cause us to 
fulfil the law, and they care not about the caste/ 
It was from Sakya's lips or from those of his 
disciples that India heard for the first time these 



FIRST WORKS ON BUDDHISM. 105 



words : ' My law is one of grace and mercy for 
all. And what is a law of grace and mercy for 
all ? It is one under which such wretched beggars 
as Duragata can become monks.'* When the 
king, Buddha's father, wishes to give him a wife, 
he causes the qualities expected from the young 
bride to be proclaimed, adding : ' Whether the 
young woman be of royal or Brahminical blood, 
of Vaicya or Coudraf race, is of no importance. 
My son does not prize either family or race ; real 
and moral qualities, such are the desires of his 
heart. 'J 

It is, therefore, easy to understand among 
which class Buddha at first recruited his ad- 
herents, as also the opposition he met with. The 
caste which had possessed the monopoly of re- 
ligious things could not see without wrath its 
privilege transferred to people of the lowest con- 
ditions. One day Ananda, Sakya-Mouni's servant, 
wandering through the country, meets a young girl 
drawing water. He asks her to let him drink. 
The young girl informs him that, being of the 
caste of the Tchandalas, she may defile him by 
her contact. ' I do not, sister, inquire about thy 
caste or thy family,' replies Ananda. ' I merely 
ask thee for water, if thou art willing to give me 

E. Burnoufs ' Introduction a l'Histoire du Buddhisme 
indien/ p. 198. 

f Vaicya, trading class, bourgeoisie. Coudra, belonging to 
the lower classes— the class of servants. — Translator's 
Note. 

% Foucaux's ' Lalitavistara,' p. 133. 



io6 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



some.' Prakriti (such is her name) feels herself 
enamoured at once of Ananda. Taking advan- 
tage of the circumstance, Sakya, by a series of 
double-meaning questions, which Prakriti inter- 
prets in the sense of her passion, prepares her 
heart. Finally the young girl sees her error, 
and declares herself resolved upon entering into 
religious life. 

It is not that the first founders of Buddhism 
had the slightest idea of political reform. They 
aimed at substituting for a religious class a body 
equally religious, recruited from all classes. They 
admitted the political consequences of caste, and 
only rejected its religious consequences. But 
it was hard not to slip from the one to the other. 
How was it possible to maintain in social in- 
feriority those with whom they professed entire 
community of religious interests ? Other philo- 
sophers, Kapila and Patandjali, had, before Sakya, 
attempted to substitute individual asceticism for 
the practices of the Vedas, reserved exclusively 
to the Brahmins. On the whole, the latter alone 
were the losers by these revolutions. The dis- 
tinction between other classes was as marked as 
in the past. But the Brahmins could not bear 
that any beggar should become their equal, and 
that they themselves should be subjected to 
noviciate and investitures like others, in order to 
obtain that which till then they only owed to 
their birth. That is why the objections of the 
Brahmins to Buddhism are neither theological nor 



FIRST WORKS ON BUDDHISM. 



107 



philosophical; they are purely political. Buddhism 
was sapping the very foundations of Indian society ; 
it had, therefore, to be vanquished, or the old 
society must fall to pieces. Social institutions 
proved the strongest, and Buddhism disappeared 
from India without leaving any recollection. The 
castes offered an invincible resistance. Even to the 
present day they oppose a powerful obstacle to 
Christianity, which in India has only succeeded in 
winning over a few pariahs. 

Women were also indebted to Buddhism for 
a momentary amelioration of their fate. The new 
religion gave them religious importance. They 
were permitted to embrace monastic life, and to 
practise the same rule as men. No doubt they 
preserved notable inferiority ; they could not 
directly arrive at the state of Buddha, but they 
were enabled to reach that state by being born 
again as men. The female sex thus continued to 
be a punishment. In the state of perfection there 
will be no women. The miracle of a change of 
sex is pretty frequent in Buddhistic legends. The 
accomplished woman becomes man. That is 
what happened to Sugata's daughter, who achieved 
perfection, recognised the equality of all laws and 
of all beings, and was always animated by thoughts 
of charity and compassion for all creatures. At 
the sight of all the worlds she caused the signs of 
her sex to disappear. Transformed into a bod- 
hisatva, she seated herself beneath the tree of in- 
telligence, and entered into supreme rest. 



io8 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



Were there originally laymen in the sect ? 
Mr. Hodgson is in favour of the negative.* He 
thinks that, at the beginning, to be a Buddhist 
meant to embrace the religious state, to make 
vows of chastity and mendicity. But that rule 
did not last long. In the earliest legends upasakas 
— that is, believers or devotees — kings, merchants, 
etc., are spoken of. But the monks alone are 
' disciples,' properly speaking. At first vagabonds, 
living under the trees or in huts of branches, 
they used to spend the rainy season among the 
rich, devoting their time to preaching or medita- 
tion. The rains over, they assembled again, and 
formed a council, conferring between themselves 
on the subject of their meditations. That was the 
origin of the convent or vihara. At first mere 
temporary shelters in the woods, without which 
modesty would have taken alarm at the total 
absence of enclosures, the viharas soon became 
roomy structures, little different from our medi- 
aeval monasteries, and where the separation of the 
sexes was rigorously observed. 

Judging by its primitive texts, Buddhism ap- 
pears like a simple doctrine, without mythology, 
devoid of worship, giving scope to unlimited 
freedom of thought. ' There are few creeds,' 
says Burnouf, ' based upon so small a number of 
dogmas, and imposing fewer sacrifices on common- 

See Burnouf's ' Introduction a THistoire du Buddhisme 
indien,' p. 281 and following. 



FIRST WORKS ON BUDDHISM. 



109 



sense.'* Buddhism did not do away with vulgar 
mythology ; it made it subordinate, by establish- 
ing the belief that man can attain all his aims by 
his merits alone, and that upon reaching the state 
of Buddha, he rises far above the gods. To offer 
prayers to the devas is sheer puerility. ' It is a 
belief generally admitted in the world that prayers 
addressed to the gods secure the birth of either 
sons or daughters ; but it is not so, otherwise 
everybody would have a hundred sons, all of them 
sovereign monarchs.'t The gods are pitilessly 
sacrificed to the Buddha. And the Buddha is 
neither a god, nor the incarnation of a god. He 
is a man; he is ' the hermit of the Sakya's 
family ' — a king's son become a monk. His 
superiority in virtue and science alone commends 
him to the people. Like all beings, he has re- 
volved within the circle of transmigration ; it is 
he who will deliver the gods themselves from their 
divinity. 

Thus in primitive Buddhism the gods are but 
useless inventions, simply destined to satisfy the 
need felt by the imagination of peopling space. 
Monotheism is, however, so natural an inclination 
of the human mind, that the religion of atheism 
had to give way before it. This is one of the 
most curious evolutions of religious history. It 
was in Nepal and in Thibet, about the tenth 

See Burnouf 's 1 Introduction a l'Histoire du Buddhisme 
indien,' p. 336. 

f Ibid., p. 132 and following. 



no NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



century of our era, that, according to Cosma 
de Coros, was effected this transformation of 
atheism into theism, by the creation of an Adi- 
Buddha or supreme Buddha, sole god and creator, 
quite analogous with Brahma. Nothing could 
have been more opposed to the doctrine of early 
Buddhism, according to which every being exists 
by its own nature, svabhdvdt* The bodhisatva 
Avalokitegvara became for other sects a supreme 
being, a kind of tutelary god, object of materialistic 
worship. Mandjucri, another bodhisatva, became 
also the cause of a whole polytheistic and mytho- 
logical development. The Nepalese are Moguls ; 
they could not, like the Hindus, content them- 
selves with metaphysics, and live without demi- 
urgust and incarnations. This was unavoidable 
as soon as the most refined production of Hindu 
thought was transferred to races quite incapable 
of appreciating it. What could those rough 
hands grasp of the light texture of dreams 
woven by the mystics from the banks of the 
Ganges ? Popular child's-play, which the Hindu 
founders did not care to eliminate ; chimerical 
beings, pretas, hells invented to terrify the 
weakest minds. Having begun with pure nega- 
tion, Buddhism must thus drift into the most 

* E. Burnoufs ' Introduction a l'Histoire du Buddhisme 
indien,' pp. 120, 121. 

t From the Greek Srjfuovpybg, an ancient philosophical ex- 
pression, the name given by the Platonists to the creating 
intelligence. — Translator's Note. 



FIRST WORKS ON BUDDHISM. ill 



unrestrained superstition. The needs of the 
human heart resumed the ascendant ; the in- 
fluence of Civaism gave access to all mythological 
complications. Gods and goddesses, at first re- 
duced to nominal importance, regained all their 
influence by the tantras, in much the same way as, 
with Christianity, the worship of saints was the 
revenge of paganism, at first so strictly checked by 
Jewish-Christian puritanism. At the same time, 
moral character disappears, religion consists only 
in turning the wheel, making statuettes of Buddha, 
and offering flowers to the statuettes. Pious 
Buddhists spend their lives in counting the revo- 
lutions of the prayer-wheel, calculating chimerical 
numbers, and beating drums in order to drive 
away the demons.* All is pure idolatry. t 

It is worthy of notice that this only occurs in 
the north. In Ceylon, in Ava, in Siam, these 
puerilities did not prevail. It may appear singular 
that the tantric system, being so superstitious, 
should at the same time be theistic or monotheistic. 
Yet it has neither become more practical nor lost 
any of its nihilism. Putting implicit confidence in 
magical formulae looked upon as infallible means 
of salvation,J Nepalese Buddhism has neverthe- 

® The Tao-tse themselves no longer understand Lao-Tsen's 
metaphysics ; their religion now consists only in outward 
practices. 

t In Persia, bot has become synonymous with idol. Bot- 
kedels is equivalent to ' pagoda.' 

% It is thus that the name of chamanism, that is, the 
grossest witchcraft — is connected with Buddhism {chaman — 
qramand) . 



ii2 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



less fallen into the most extravagant quietism. 
' To the ascetic, an enemy or himself, his wife or 
his daughter, his mother or a prostitute, are the 
same thing.' India baffles all the inductions 
drawn from the experience of the rest of mankind. 
She seems intended to give the lie to the most 
undoubted psychological laws. People were at 
first struck by the outward analogies between 
Buddhism and Catholicism. They are, no doubt, 
real ; yet it is evident that the doctrinal starting- 
points of these two religions were as far apart as 
possible. In religious history, it is prudent not 
to assign any rule to the combinations brought 
about by centuries. Everything is possible ; 
opposite poles will often meet ; extremes will pro- 
duce similar effects. The negation of the very 
existence of morality brought forth the height of 
devotion ; atheism produced a legend full of an 
ineffable sentiment of gentleness and benevolence ; 
nihilism produced small terrestrial paradises of 
sweet and happy life.* Even in our days the 
sight of a lamasery exercises a powerful attraction 
and an invincible charm over the most ill- 
disposed minds. 

° See specially the last scenes in the life of Hiouen- 
Thsang, translated by M. Julien. 



FIRST WORKS ON BUDDHISM. 113 



IV. 

Strange it is that the two countries where 
Buddhism had its greatest success, China and 
Japan, are precisely those which seemed least 
prepared to receive from India the good tidings of 
salvation. Religious sterility often disposes to 
credulity. Races and individuals wanting in 
religious originality are often predestined to 
believe and to accept anything. 

Among the contrasts offered by the infinite 
variety of the human mind, that existing between 
India and China is perhaps the most striking, and 
the most likely to show in how many divers pro- 
portions the intellectual and moral faculties which 
compose our nature may be combined. Contrary 
qualities and defects never established between 
two races a more complete disagreement. During 
the four or five thousand years which comprise her 
history, China offers us the unique spectacle of a 
society founded upon a purely human basis, with- 
out a prophet, without a messiah, without a re- 
vealer, without a mythology — of a society solely 
calculated for temporal welfare and the good 
organization of this world. As for India, she 
offers the equally surprising spectacle of an ex- 
clusively speculative race, living only for the ideal, 
building its religion and its literature in the clouds, 
without any mixture of historical or real ele- 
ments. The characteristic feature of the Chinese 
mind is the negation of the supernatural : what 

8 



ii4 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



it cannot understand does not exist for it.* 
Confucius, the incarnation of Chinese genius, is 
but an economist and a moralist ; it is said that, 
when his disciples turned the conversation to 
divine matters, he used to keep silent or get 
out of the difficulty with this ironical query : ' Do 
you know earthly things so well that you trouble 
yourselves about heavenly ones ?' As for India, 
lost in the contemplation of the infinite, she ex- 
hausted her activity in the creation of an exube- 
rant mythology and of numberless systems of 
metaphysics, without ever deeming the study of 
nature, of man, of history worthy of a moment's 
thought. Simple, lucid, industrial, Chinese litera- 
ture from immemorial times appears to us with 
the character of the most positive, or, as the 
expression runs, the most utilitarian epoch. 
India has to this day been unable to extricate 
herself from the infinite maze of her systems and 
fables ; one of the greatest mythological poems — 
the ' Prem-Sagar ' of Brahminism, bears date 1804. 
China is undoubtedly of all countries that whose 
ancient records are best preserved ; she possesses, 
dynasty after dynasty, and almost year after year, 
the official documents of her history, the decrees 
of her sovereigns, the rules of her administration, 
from the twelfth century before the Christian era. 

* Even in St. Francis Xavier's time, the missionaries used 
to experience the greatest difficulty in finding a Chinese 
word corresponding with the idea of God ; some years ago 
the Biblical Society experienced similar difficulties. 



FIRST WORKS ON BUDDHISM. 115 

India, so prodigiously fecund in everything else, 
does not possess one single line of history. She has 
come down to our days without thinking reality 
worth the trouble of being consigned to writing. 
From the earliest antiquity China gives the model 
of a constitution based on learning and reason, 
admitting no other privileges but those conferred 
by instruction and merit tested by competitive 
examination ; if the problem of social organization 
could be solved by reason alone, China would 
have solved it three thousand years ago. India 
never could rise above the most elementary political 
institutions ; the caste, under its most severe and 
absolute form, remains even in our days the basis 
of society. And all this is easily explained : the 
present life is for the Chinese the end of human 
activity ; for the Indian it is an episode in the series 
of existences, a passage between two eternities. 
On the one side is the race of the finite: respectable, 
reasonable, narrow as common sense; on the other 
the race of the infinite : dreamy, distracted, led 
astray by imagination. Their physical characteris- 
tics themselves present a no less striking contrast. 
The oblique and shining eyes, the flattened nose, 
the thick-set body, the vulgar air of the Chinese, 
indicate a shrewd and sensible man, well ac- 
quainted with the things of this world ; the noble 
form of the Indian, his high stature, his large and 
calm forehead, his deep and quiet eyes, proclaim 
a race born for meditation, and destined by its 

8—2 



n6 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



very aberrations to show the extent of the specu- 
lative power of mankind. 

Yet — who will credit it ? — it is in China, among 
this race devoid of metaphysics, or mythology, 
almost without poetry, that one of India's boldest 
and most original conceptions found an asylum, and 
secured the largest number of adherents. Budd- 
hism became contagious among the races which 
seemed least accessible to it. That fantastically 
strange religion, holding out to man annihilation 
as the supreme end, pointing out as the height of 
perfection the moment when, having succeeded in 
shaking off the bad dream of existence, he arrives 
at a state where there is no longer thought or 
absence of thought, desire or absence of desire ; 
that exaggeration of Indian genius, overwhelming 
to India herself, since she had no rest until she 
succeeded in banishing it from her bosom, ex- 
cited ardent mysticism in thousands of Chinese. 
Want of originality betrays itself by the ready 
acceptance of all doctrines, even the most anti- 
pathetic. Deficient in religious invention, the 
Chinese, with regard to foreign creeds, presented 
a sort of tabula rasa, whereon any doctrine might 
be inscribed. Docility is often only a sign of 
want of individuality ; and a religion never finds 
easier acceptance than among those who, to 
embrace it, have not to renounce any previous 
habit of mind. Hence the astonishing success of 
Buddhism with the races of Central and Eastern 
Asia ; for them the new creed satisfied a want 



FIRST WORKS ON BUDDHISM. 117 



and supplied an omission in their moral constitu- 
tion. Hence also that miraculous transformation 
by which a selfish and non-idealistic race became, 
under the influence of the new creed, devout, 
credulous, full of faith, charmingly sensitive — in 
one word, pious ; those very Chinese who, owing 
to the want of that groundwork of spirituality 
indispensable to Christians, were destined, later, 
to reject Christianity ! 

Nowhere does this fact, so important in the 
history of the human mind, appear with more 
originality than in the very curious work which 
M. Stanislas Julien has brought before the public* 
It is the biography of a Chinese Buddhist of the 
seventh century of our era, whom the ardour of 
his piety brought, like many more of his co-re- 
ligionists, to the country sanctified by Sakya- 
Mouni's preaching. Since the introduction of 
Buddhism in China numbers of Chinese, we 
know, undertook pilgrimages to India, in order 
to study the Buddha's doctrine, to visit the places 
made famous by his miracles, and to seek for 
more complete texts of the canonical books. With 
the accuracy and precision which is in all things 
the main feature of the Chinese nation, these 
pilgrims on their return often wrote accounts of 
their travels, either for the edification of their 
readers, or to serve the political purposes of the 

* ' Hiouen-Thsang's Life and Voyages in India, from the 
year 618 down to 645/ translated from the Chinese by M. 
Stanislas Julien. Paris, 1853. 



n8 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



Celestial Empire. Hence sprang a class of 
writings of peculiar interest, especially if we con- 
sider the complete uncertainty which for us sur- 
rounds Indian chronology, and the obligation 
resting on us to supply, by foreign testimony, the 
omissions of India as regards her own history. 
Thus the six narratives of this kind handed down 
to us at once attracted the attention of the first 
scholars who dealt with Buddhism. A man on 
whose character it is perhaps permissible to re- 
serve one's judgment, but whose lofty range of 
mind cannot be doubted by anyone — M. Abel 
Remusat — perceived the immense interest of 
these curious relations. He translated the most 
ancient of all — that of Fabian, who started on his 
pilgrimage in the year 399 of our era. But several 
reasons precluded the work of that eminent 
orientalist from attaining all the desired perfection. 
The chief of those reasons was no doubt the im- 
possibility of recognising at that time, under the 
Chinese transcriptions, the corresponding Indian 
proper names. The monosyllabic vocalization of 
the Chinese tongue is, indeed, so very different 
from that of all other languages, particularly from 
that of the rich and full sound of Sanscrit, that 
Indian names, mutilated and disfigured in that 
strange process of transcription, become quite 
unrecognisable. Besides which, strange abbre- 
viations often complicate the difficulty; thus, 
' Buddha ' is reduced to ■ Fo ' (for ' Fotho '), and 
' Brahma ' to ' Fan ' (for ' Fan-lan-mo '). It is 



FIRST WORKS ON BUDDHISM. 119 



easy to understand that, for want of a rule enabling 
us to detect these deviations of sound, all attempts 
to translate Chinese works relative to India could 
only result in a barbarous and often unintelligible 
text. Chinese translators are, indeed, in the habit 
of preserving untranslated a crowd of Sanscrit 
words, such as titles of books, names of plants, 
and terms considered sacramental or mysterious. 
At other times, on the contrary, instead of tran- 
scribing proper names, they translate them into 
Chinese equivalents in much the same way as if 
Theodorus were rendered by ' God-given ' (Dieu- 
donne). What, for instance, could we learn 
from the mention on each page of the King 
Wou-yeou (' free from sorrow ') if we were not 
aware of that word being the literal translation 
of Acoka's name, so famous in the annals of 
Buddhism ? M. Stanislas Julien has traced the 
most secret laws of these singular transformations 
by an ingenious and safe method, which, in his 
preface, he explains with great lucidity. He has 
thus enriched philology with a new and highly 
important instrument, without which all Chinese 
texts relative to India must have remained a dead 
letter. 

Hiouen-Thsang, the Buddhist pilgrim with 
whose life and voyages we are acquainted through 
M. Stanislas Julien, started on his long peregrina- 
tions in the year 629 of our era, and returned to 
his country in the year 645. At that time Budd- 
hism was already in decadence in India. In 



i2o NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



several places Hiouen-Thsang found the monas- 
teries abandoned ; the town of Kapilavastou, 
Sakya-Mouni's birthplace, was but a heap of 
ruins when he visited it. In the eyes of the 
Chinese, however, India was still the country of 
Buddhistic orthodoxy, the privileged land which 
pious souls longed to visit, as much to collect the 
teachings of the most venerated masters as to 
do homage there to the relics of Sakya-Mouni's 
earthly life. A truly grand and touching spec- 
tacle it is to see that poor monk, alone, in the 
midst of boundless deserts, with his books, his 
horse, and the phantoms of his imagination, 
sustained only by the hope of attaining to ' final 
deliverance,' and of ■ saving men carried away by 
the torrent of life and death.' He often misses 
his way ; he becomes disheartened ; he even 
thinks of retracing his steps ; suddenly he remem 
bers the vow he took of not making one step 
towards the East (that is, towards China) until 
he had visited the land of Buddha ; then he reso- 
lutely turns his horse's head towards the west. 
Once the skin containing his supply of water slips 
from his hands, and its contents are lost. ' He 
looks in all directions,' says his biographer, ' and 
only sees an endless plain, whereon is no trace of 
either men or horses. During the night wicked 
spirits cause torches as numerous as the stars to 
sparkle around him ; in the daytime, fearful winds 
raise the sand, which falls on him like a torrent of 
rain. For four nights and five days, not a drop 



FIRST WORKS ON BUDDHISM. 121 



of water has he wherewith to moisten his mouth 
and throat. A burning heat parches him. He 
then, believing his last hour has come, stretches 
himself on the sand, invoking the name of Avalo- 
kitegvam* " Bodhisatva" he cries, "you know 
that, in undertaking this journey, Hiouen-Thsang 
seeks not riches nor gain ; neither does he wish 
for praise or fame. His sole aim is to find higher 
intellect and the right law. I respectfully believe, 
O Bodhisatva, that your tender heart applies itself 
ceaselessly to free all creatures from the bitter 
trials of life." He prays thus, with indefatigable 
fervour, until the middle of the fifth night, when 
suddenly a delightful breeze pervades his whole 
being, and makes his body and limbs as supple as 
though he had bathed in a refreshing stream. 
His bedimmed eyes recover sight, and he is en- 
abled to take a little sleep ; after which he 
resumes his journey. He has ridden but a few 
miles when his horse alters its course, without his 
being able to turn it back. He soon beholds vast 
pastures, and a lake whose water is clear and 
transparent as a mirror. He takes a long draught, 
and thahks to that double godsend, both traveller 
and horse recover life and strength for the second 
time.' 

He thus goes on his way, having no other guide 
but the heaps of human bones which line the 
road. The effects of mirage fill those solitudes 

* Bodhisatva, that is, future Buddha, for whom the 
Buddhists of China and Thibet profess the greatest devotion. 



122 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



with armies of supernatural beings. He crosses 
the immense sandy desert that forms the central 
plateau of Asia, traverses the Dzoungaria and the 
kingdom of the Oigours, leaves the high steppes 
of Mongolia through the defile which divides the 
massive ridges of the Pamir from the Altaic range 
of mountains — the gateway through which the 
Tartar hordes have so frequently sallied to ravage 
the shores of the Caspian Sea and the Sarmatic 
plains — meets the Turks on the banks of the 
Taxartes, and gives us the most curious informa- 
tion respecting their state at that time. 

The scene changes suddenly as he enters India. 
He finds himself in the midst of memories of his 
faith, readily welcomed in all the monasteries, and 
everywhere revered for his piety and his skill in 
debate. At every step he meets with relics of 
Sakya-Mouni. Here, the stone upon which he 
used to wash his garments, and which still bears 
threads of their texture ; there, the staircase by 
which he came down from heaven ; elsewhere, 
the tree under which he attained supreme intelli- 
gence ; elsewhere again, the spot where he gave 
his eyes away as alms ; in another direction, the 
place where, to appease the hunger of the seven 
cubs of a tigress, he gave away his own body. 
With the traveller we follow the track of this 
fantastic legend, consecrated by the erection of 
innumerable stoiipas, a kind of pyramidal mound, 
with which the most marvellous ideas are asso- 
ciated. The assurance with which Hiouen-Thsang 



FIRST WORKS ON BUDDHISM. 123 



relates as phenomena visible to everybody the 
most incredible prodigies is really surprising. It 
is true he himself confesses that the spectator's 
faith is the indispensable condition of the miracle. 
There is even Buddha's foot-print, which seems 
of more or less size according to the greater or 
less faith of the beholder, and there is scarcely 
a relic whose description is not wound up with 
this invariable formula: ' The persons who worship 
it with sincere faith see it surrounded with luminous 
rays.' After reading the account of these strange 
hallucinations, one fully understands what a long 
education is needed to raise the human mind to 
that degree of reflection and clearness of concep- 
tion in which it is no longer the sport of its own 
delusions. Then, also, we understand how false 
is the too readily accepted opinion, that if research 
into causes is the portion only of the learned, the 
verification of facts is within everybody's reach. 
Certainly, if it be true that public notoriety can 
sometimes silence criticism, this ought to apply 
to the marvels related by Hiouen-Thsang. Never 
were prodigies more palpable, or apparently less 
lending themselves to illusion. It seems as if it 
would be sufficient to open one's eyes to discover 
their falsehood ; yet here is one of the most en- 
lightened men of his time, a man belonging to the 
most sensible and the most accurate race of the 
world, who is a dupe like the rest ; and, in our 
days, the Buddhists still appeal to these perma- 
nent marvels in defence of their faith. As regards 



124 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



miracles, men indeed judge with the opinions of 
their time a great deal more than with their own 
eyes, and I really do not know whether we have 
the right to be very severe on Hiouen-Thsang. 
At least, seeing with what impunity ridiculous 
mystifications go round the whole civilized world 
even in our days, far from being surprised at the 
credulity of the past, we are compelled to admit 
that criticism, that faculty which guards man 
against the thousand illusions which surround 
him, is an exceptional gift, and that the day when 
it will regulate public opinion is still far distant. 

One of the stories which best show the pilgrim's 
naivete and good faith, is that of his visit to the 
cave where Sakya-Mouni's disciples believe that 
their master left his shadow. Nowhere is the 
machinery of illusion so thoroughly unveiled. 
' This cave, ! says the biographer, ' is situate east- 
ward of a rivulet flowing between two mountains. 
When Hiouen-Thsang first peered into the cave, 
it appeared to him plunged in funereal darkness. 
" Master," said his guide to him, " go straight in ; 
when you have touched the eastern side, go fifty 
steps back and look eastward ; it is there that the 
shadow dwells." The pilgrim entered the grotto 
alone. Having touched the eastern wall, accord- 
ing to his guide's instructions, he drew back and 
stood still. Animated by the most profound faith, 
he then salaamed a hundred times, but he could 
not see anything. He bitterly reproached himself 
for his sins, he wept and cried aloud, and aban- 



FIRST WORKS ON BUDDHISM. 



125 



doned himself to grief. After that, he devoutly 
and with a sincere heart began reciting the 
Buddha's praises, taking care to prostrate himself 
after each verse. 

' Having thus salaamed about a hundred times, 
he noticed on the eastern wall a gleam of light 
about as large as a monk's pitcher, which vanished 
all at once. Filled with joy, and also with grief 
at the disappearance of the apparition, he renewed 
his salaams, when the same gleam re-appeared, 
this time somewhat larger ; it shone and vanished 
like lightning. In a transport of admiration and 
love, he then swore not to leave the spot until he 
had seen the Buddha's shadow. He continued to 
pay his homage, and when he had salaamed about 
two hundred times more, the whole grotto was 
flooded with sudden light, and the Buddha's 
shadow of dazzling whiteness majestically dis- 
played itself on the wall, as when the clouds open, 
and the marvellous image of the golden mountain 
is seen. A radiant brilliance lit up his divine 
face. Hiouen-Thsang, plunged in ecstasy, long 
contemplated the sublime and incomparable ob- 
ject of his adoration. The Buddha's body, as well 
as his religious vestments, were of a reddish- 
yellow. The beauty of his person shone in full 
light ; on the left, on the right, and behind him 
could be seen the shadows of the bodhisatvas and 
gramanas forming his retinue. 

' Hiouen-Thsang having clearly seen this divine 
phenomenon, respectfully prostrated himself, cele- 



126 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



brated the Buddha's praises, and strewed flowers 
and perfumes. The Brahmin who accompanied 
him was overjoyed and astounded. " Master," 
said he, "had not your faith been so sincere and 
your vows so ardent, you would not have wit- 
nessed such a marvel." Out of his six attendants, 
five saw the phenomenon, but there was one 
who could see nothing ; it only lasted a few 
instants.' 

Among the legends which the pilgrim gleans 
on his road, some breathe most delicate moral 
feelings. I shall only quote one which appears to 
have enjoyed great popularity in India. In a 
certain monastery, there used to be a statue of 
Buddha which bore on its head a priceless dia- 
mond; some thieves, tempted to abstract it, 
surreptitiously entered the sanctuary ; but, oh 
miracle ! the statue suddenly grew to an enormous 
size, thus raising the diamond to a height no 
human arm could have reached. The robbers 
withdrew, muttering : ' What they say of Buddha 
must be a fable ; of yore, it is said, he used to 
give away his riches and even his own body, but 
now he has become an awful miser !' The Buddha, 
smarting under the taunt, caused the statue to 
stoop down, and place the diamond in the hands 
of the thieves. But when they tried to sell it, 
they were arrested, and their only resource was to 
assert that Buddha gave them the jewel. They 
were then taken to the shrine, where the statue 
was found with its head still bent. The king then 



FIRST WORKS ON BUDDHISM. 



127 



bought back the diamond for an enormous sum, 
and replaced it on Buddha's head. 

On every page we meet with instances of the 
same mildness and benevolence carried even to 
puerility. 'Once, the steward of a convent, being un- 
able to procure the needful provisions, was greatly 
perplexed ; at that moment he saw a flock of geese 
flying through the air, and facetiously remarked : 
" To-day there is no food for the monks ; noble 
beings, you must make allowance for the circum- 
stances." He had scarcely spoken when the 
leader of the flock dropped from the clouds, as 
though its wings had been clipped, and fell at the 
steward's feet. The latter, filled with fear and 
confusion, informed his brother monks of the 
occurrence, and they at once broke into tears and 
sobs. "That bird," they said to each other, 
" was a bodhisatva. How could we dare to eat it ? 
What mad wretches we are ! we have been the 
cause of that bird's death I" They then erected a 
sacred tower, within which they laid the body of 
the goose, affixing to it an inscription, so as to 
hand down to posterity the remembrance of its 
pious devotion.' 

At other times, the pure and lofty morality 
which, forming a contrast perhaps unique in its 
kind, is found amongst Buddhists closely allied 
with the' most absurd dogmas, is revealed in edify- 
ing episodes of the pilgrim's life. ' On leaving 
Oude, Hiouen-Thsang embarked on the Ganges 
with eighty persons, bound eastward. Having 



12 8 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



sailed a few miles, they found themselves between 
two banks thickly covered with asokas trees, whose 
foliage was extremely thick ; on either side of the 
river those trees concealed ten pirate boats. The 
latter, by dint of hard rowing, came up the middle 
of the stream, surrounded the boat, and towed it 
ashore. There they compelled all the passengers to 
take off their garments, which they searched to find 
whatever valuables they could lay their hands on. 
But these brigands worshipped the goddess Dourga. 
Every year, in the autumn, they started in quest 
of a well-made and good-looking man, whom they 
sacrificed to that goddess in order to obtain happi- 
ness. Having examined the pilgrim, whose noble 
figure and distinguished appearance answered 
their cruel designs, they cast at each other looks 
of satisfaction. " Not finding any man worthy of 
our goddess, we were," they said, " about to let 
the season elapse without offering her the sacrifice 
she requires ; but this monk is of fine stature and 
charming looks ; let us kill him to obtain happi- 
ness." 

' " If this vile and contemptible body," replied 
Hiouen-Thsang, " could fitly meet the aim of your 
sacrifice, truly I should not grudge it to you ; but, 
as I have come from distant countries in order to 
procure sacred books and make myself proficient in 
the law, and as my vow has not yet been fulfilled, 
I fear, generous men, that your taking my life will 
bring upon you the greatest misfortunes." All 
the passengers joined their entreaties to his : 



FIRST WORKS ON BUDDHISM. 129 



some even offered to suffer death in his place ; but 
the pirates obstinately refused. Their chief sent 
men for water , from the midst of the wood of 
flowering asokas, and directed them to erect an 
altar made of earth kneaded with the mud from 
the stream ; then he ordered two of his followers 
to draw their sabres, to place Hiouen-Thsang on 
the top of the altar, and to sacrifice him without 
delay. 

' However, the pilgrim, whose face betrayed 
neither fear nor emotion, requested the brigands 
to grant him a few moments' respite, and not to 
hurry him off violently. " Let me," said he to 
them, " enter upon the nirvana with a calm and 
joyful soul." He then thought lovingly of Mait- 
reya,* and begged that he might be born in the 
heaven of the gods, thence again to descend upon 
earth, in order to convert those men who were 
about to inflict death upon him, and to rescue 
them from their infamous profession, to spread 
abroad the benefits of the law, and bring peace 
and bliss to all creatures. He afterwards wor- 
shipped the Buddhas of the ten countries of the 
world, seated himself in the attitude of meditation, 
and, with all his might, concentrated his thoughts 
upon Maitreya, without allowing any exterior im- 
pressions to disturb him. Then, from the depths 
of his enraptured soul, he fancied he was rising to 
Mount Meru, and that, having traversed three 
heavens, he saw the venerable Maitreya seated, in 
* A much venerated bodhisatva, 

9 



i3o NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



the celestial palace, upon a resplendent throne, 
and surrounded by countless gods. 

' He was thus plunged in bliss, body and soul, 
not knowing that he was beside the altar, heedless 
of the bloodthirsty pirates, when all at once a 
furious wind began to blow, breaking the branches 
of the trees, whirling the sand about in all direc- 
tions, swelling the stream and capsizing the boats. 
The pirates were terrified. One of them having 
accidentally touched Hiouen-Thsang's hand, the 
pilgrim opened his eyes and said : " Has my hour 
come?" " Master," replied the brigands, "we 
dare not injure you ; on the contrary, we wish to 
express to you our profound respect." Having 
accepted their apology, Hiouen-Thsang taught 
them that those who practise murder, theft, and 
impious sacrifices shall, in the future life, endure 
everlasting torments. " We were," said the 
pirates, " blind and mad, and we have committed 
hateful crimes. From this day, we swear to 
renounce our infamous calling, and wish the 
master to bear witness to our conversion." Say- 
ing this, they exhorted each other to do good, 
gathered together the instruments of murder and 
cast them into the stream ; they then returned to 
each passenger his wearing apparel and his pro- 
visions; after which they respectfully received the 
five prohibitions.' 

The account of Hiouen-Thsang's death is no 
less touching. Informed by a secret warning of 
his approaching end, he directs a list to be drawn 



FIRST WORKS ON BUDDHISM. 131 

up of the books he had translated, the thousands 
of copies of the law which had been made under 
his supervision, of the myriads of images of 
Buddha he had caused to be painted on silk, of 
the persons towards whom he had shown compas- 
sion, of the creatures he had redeemed, of the 
hundred thousand lamps he had lighted. After 
which, he divides his property amongst the 
destitute, and gives them a great banquet. He 
then invites his disciples to take a joyous leave 
of Hiouen-Thsang's impure body, which, having 
played its part, no longer deserves to live. ' I 
wish,' he added, ' to see the merits I may have 
acquired by my good deeds imparted to other 
men, born again with them in the heaven of the 
gods, and with them attaining transcendental 
intelligence.' He then became silent and entered 
upon meditation. He died successively to the 
world of sight, to the world of thought, to the 
world of perception of immaterial things. ' Master,' 
inquired one of his disciples, 'have you at last 
obtained the privilege of again coming to life in 
Maitreya's assembly ?' ' Yes,' said he, with a 
faint voice. His breathing then grew gradually 
weaker, and his soul took flight. His face still 
preserved its colour ; all his features were expres- 
sive of joy ; his body emitted no odour. 

It will easily be conceived that, in the history 
of the human mind, nothing can be of greater 
interest than to have thus, at a given date and 
as in a mirror, the expression of the inmost 

9—2 



1 32 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



feelings of a Buddhist. Buddhism in Hiouen- 
Thsang has already existed more than a thousand 
years ; and it has also undergone the most 
thorough transformation. It is no longer that 
nihilist and atheistic philosophy which we find 
expounded with incredible audacity in the books 
most nearly cotemporary with Sakya's preaching. 
Buddhism has lost that vigour of negation, that 
frightful daring which, at certain moments of 
madness, led it to deny its own existence and 
that of everything else. It is now but a pure and 
lofty morality, a devotion, a collection of pious 
legends, a more or less idolatrous worship. The 
numerous controversies which fill Hiouen-Thsang's 
pilgrimage relate mostly to questions of texts : 
there are constant references to the great and the 
small vehicle, that is, the two kinds of sacred books 
or soutras possessed by the Buddhists ; the latter 
shorter, more simple and more in keeping with 
Sakya's primitive teachings ; the former more 
developed, more mythological, and of a richer 
imagination. With Buddhism, as with every other 
creed, these disputes seem to have been greatly 
prejudicial to charity. They, at least, suppose in 
the adversaries peculiar assurance and full con- 
viction of the truth of their principles, since, 
before each controversy, we see the aggressor 
affixing to the door of the convent the theses he 
proposes to sustain, with the invariable formula : 
' If anyone finds in this writing one single erroneous 
word, and shows himself capable of refuting it, I 



FIRST WORKS ON BUDDHISM. 



133 



will give him my head to cut off, in order to prove 
my gratitude.' As a faithful Buddhist, Hiouen- 
Thsang never availed himself of the advantages 
victory procured him; he contented himself with 
taking the defeated heretic into his service for a 
few days, in order that he might learn about the 
doctrines he was not acquainted with, so as to 
prepare their refutation. 

To sum up, Hiouen-Thsang remains to the last 
a most winning personage. Everywhere we see 
the Chinese beneath the Buddhist, and that 
combination produces a loftier character than is 
usually that of the Chinese — more human in its 
proportions and more tangible than that of Indian 
ascetics. Filial piety, China's paramount virtue, 
is also that of our Buddhist. On his return, his 
first care is to obtain leave from the Emperor 
to go with his aged sister and remove the 
remains of his parents, hurriedly buried at a 
period of political trouble. With his own hands 
he pulls up the plants that cover their grave, and 
places their bodies in a double coffin. The love 
of his country never deserts him in the course of 
his long voyages. He defends the honour and 
the institutions of China against Brahminical pre- 
tensions ; in the presence of the barbarians, his 
meekness, his politeness, that delicate feeling of 
pride and compassion which refined and superior 
minds experience when in contact with mere 
brutish fellow-creatures, bring about curious con- 
trasts, which exhibit in a strong light the distinc- 



134 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



tion of his mind and manners. To the great senti- 
ment of civilization (a word and a sentiment which 
in the Asiatic world only apply to China), he unites 
that which only belongs to Buddhism — horror of 
bloodshed, delicate sensibility, lofty spirituality. 

The consideration he enjoys and the important 
rank he occupies in his own country are also 
noteworthy facts. The Emperor himself displays 
as much interest in his translations as if they 
were State matters ; and when Hiouen-Thsang 
begs him ' to deign to lower his divine pencil and 
write in praise of Buddha a preface whose sublime 
ideas shall shine like the sun and the moon, whose 
characters, precious as silver and jade, shall last 
as long as heaven and earth, and shall become an 
object of inexhaustible admiration for future gene- 
rations,' the Emperor out of modesty long declines 
to assent to the request. He eventually writes the 
preface so much desired, containing seven hundred 
and eighty-one characters, and written in a style 
enriched with all the ornaments of Chinese rheto- 
ric ; he nevertheless thinks fit to apologize ' for 
having defiled the traveller's golden pages, by 
strewing gravel and broken tiles in the forest of 
pearls.' 

Such is, in China, the style of Emperors. It 
does not seem exaggerated when we bear in mind 
the rank held, or at least which used to be held, 
in Chinese society, before its decadence, by intel- 
lectual pursuits and the men who follow them. 
China is perhaps the only country where the 



FIRST WORKS ON BUDDHISM. 135 



rights of intellect have been the object of official 
sanction, and where ascertained merit has been 
admitted to confer a right to govern the State. 
Here, again, we find her the antipodes of India, 
at the same time walking hand in hand with her. 
For India is also the only country where the 
monopoly of intellectual and religious studies 
formed an aristocracy, recruited by birth, and 
claiming as a right the first rank in society. 
Between that aristocracy of contemplation which 
is Brahminism, and the supremacy of an academy 
of moral and political science, which is the Chinese 
system, in one sense there is only a step, and in 
another sense the distance is immeasurable. The 
gentle manners and the humanity characterising 
the Chinese race found another motive for sym- 
pathy in the spirit of amenity and benevolence 
which is the cause of the success of Buddhism 
among the most diverse races. In short, India 
and China, violently rushing into opposite ex- 
tremes of human thought, have met in that species 
of atheism and nihilism which is the foundation 
of Sakya's doctrine : India, through the exagge- 
ration of that perception of infinity which absorbs 
all existence, all conscience, all individuality ; 
China, through a too exclusive conception of 
finiteness, and an absolute absence of intran- 
scendental faculties. These concurrences between 
widely opposed geniuses throw open to the thinker 
singular perspectives of human nature, its capa- 
bilities and its various combinations — they appear 



136 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



like the intersections by means* of which geo- 
meters determine positions and trace the plan of 
a country. 

The habits of the European mind, or, if it is 
preferred, of the French mind, are with us so 
deeply rooted, that such strange studies will long 
appear fit only to be classed with objects of 
frivolous curiosity. Though Buddhism may be 
the religion of two hundred millions of our fellow- 
creatures, many people will nevertheless say : 
* How can a man be a Buddhist ?' and Jacque- 
mont's* impertinences will always, in the eyes of 
such people, appear more rational than the patient 
investigations of criticism. But earnest men will 
persist in thinking that a doctrine which for the 
last twenty-five centuries has brought solace and 
comfort to a considerable portion of mankind, 
must deserve their notice. Buddhism is, indeed, 
at the present time, the religion which rules over 
the largest number of consciences, and if ever 
(which God forbid !) mankind were to submit 
religion to universal suffrage, the grand Lama 
would obtain at least a relative majority. t It 

* Victor Jacquemont, born at Paris in 1801, died at 
Bombay in 1832. A French naturalist who travelled officially- 
many years in India, eminent as a scientist, but whose 
appreciation of Buddhism seems rather arbitrary. — Trans- 
lator's Note. 

f According to M. Garcin de Cassy, Buddhism reckons 
a hundred millions more adherents than Catholicism. — 
Journal des Debats, July 7, 1854, second page, third column, 
first paragraph. 



FIRST WORKS ON BUDDHISM. 



137 



cannot be uninteresting to learn how the inhabi- 
tants of one half of Asia understand life and the 
ideal. We are at liberty, no doubt, to think that 
absurd which in their eyes is sublime, provided 
we agree to admit that we appear to them as 
foolish as they do to us, and that their superiority 
is as obvious to them as ours is to us. 



NEW WORKS ON BUDDHISM* 



The study of Buddhism seems to have especially 
devolved upon French science. Abel Remusat, 
Eugene Burnouf, Stanislas Julien, gave us the 
first-fruits of it. Now that those studies have 
attained a high stage of progress, they come back 
to us ; and though the last word can never be 
uttered in such difficult matters, we may be per- 
mitted to rank M. Senart's works among those 
which sum up a scientific position and evidence 
maturity. Those works do the greatest honour 

* E. Senart's 'Essai sur la Le"gende de Buddha, son 
Caractere et ses Origines,' 2nd edition, revised and followed 
by an index, xxxv-496 pages. Paris, 1882, Leroux, 8vo. 
E. Senart's ' The Mahavastu,' Sanscrit text, published for 
the first time ; to which are added an introduction and 
commentary, vol. i., lxii-635 P a g es ? 8vo (in the * Collection 
d'Ouvrages orientaux,' published by the Socie'te' Asiatique, 
2nd series). Paris, 1882, National Printing Office (Leroux). 
E. Senart's ' Les Inscriptions de Piyadasi,' vol. i., the four- 
teen edicts. Paris, 326 pages, 2 plates. Reprinted from 
the Journal Asiatique, 1880 and 1881 (Leroux). See also 
Journal Asiatique. April, May, June, August, and September, 
1 88 1 ; February-March, 1883. A. Bergaigne and A. Barth, 
' Les Inscriptions sanscrites du Cambodge,' in the Journal 
Asiatique, February-March and August-September, 1882. 



NEW WORKS ON BUDDHISM. 



139 



to our young Oriental school. By their solidity 
and their conscientious minuteness they call to 
mind those of Burnouf ; and if that illustrious 
master had survived to our day, as the duration 
of human life would easily have allowed, he, no 
doubt, would have been the first to praise them. 
It is true that, on some points, the conclusions of 
the two scholars seem to contradict each other. 
Thirty years of active researches must have borne 
some fruit ; and during that period general criti- 
cism may also have made some progress. Burnouf 
had too scientific a mind to believe that nothing 
more was to be done after him ; and M. Senart 
himself is aware that the intricate problems of 
history only approach solution by successive ap- 
proximations. He has repeatedly modified his 
opinions, and by successive touches given to them 
the highest possible degree of precision. 

I. 

The life of Buddha is the most striking of all 
the Buddhistic legends ; it is, also, that which 
was known first. ' He practised abstinence,' says 
Marco Polo,* 'just as though he had been a 
Christian. Had he been one, he would, by reason 
of the pure and virtuous life he led, have been 
numbered among the saints of our Lord Jesus 
Christ.' The Christian Church has long been 
of the same opinion. The Lalitavistdm appeared 

* Marco Polo's ' Relation,' chap, clxxviii 



i4o NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



so beautiful to the Christians of the East, that 
from it they derived the materials for the lives of 
the saints Barlaam and Josaphat,* which for 
centuries have been read in the Church with edifi- 
cation. When the Buddhist Gospel was for the 
first time translated into French by M. Foucaux, all 
people of taste read it with the greatest pleasure, 
and thought they were reading a fabulous legend 
rather than a myth without any foundation of fact. 

An important distinction was soon made, which 
appeared a solid standpoint for criticism. In the 
developed SoiLtras, as in the Lalitavistdra, the 
details of facts are devoid of historical value. 
This is too obvious to need demonstration. But 
the simple Soutras look much more historical. In 
them we may fancy we touch a real Sakya, we 
hear the echo of his preaching, we feel the recoil 
of the sympathies and antipathies which he in- 
spired. A character human, historical, seemed to 
live below these exuberant amplifications ; and 
though the general outline be that of the ideal 
Hindu, some of the traits appeared to preserve the 
stamp of individuality. 

That is why people were slow to inquire whether 
this legend, so brightly coloured, contained a 
kernel of fact, or whether, like a soap-bubble, it 
possessed no solidity. Eugene Burnouf fully ad- 

* Josaphat is a corruption of Joasaf, a form in use among 
Eastern Christians, which itself is but a corruption of 
<-jLw,^ £=Botidasf=B6dhisatva, due to the errors pro- 
duced in Arabic by the omission of the diacritical dots. 



NEW WORKS ON BUDDHISM. 141 



mitted the personality and historical importance of 
Buddha. ' I do not,' he wrote, ' hesitate to say 
that Sakya-Mouni never intended to substitute 
new objects and new forms of worship for those 
of the existing popular creed. He lived, he 
taught, and he died as a philosopher, and his 
humanity has remained a fact so incontestably 
acknowledged by all, that the legend-makers, 
whom it cost so little to invent miracles, never 
even thought of making a god of him after his 
death.' It is certain that, placed in the midst of 
a Hindu pantheon, Buddha's statue is easily dis- 
tinguished. Unlike the hieratic idols, it is not 
laden with attributes contrary to nature ; it is the 
image of a man seated, with crossed legs, in the 
attitude of meditation. That absolute quietude, 
that naked simplicity, does not in anywise put 
us in mind of the demiurgus, the creating and 
destroying god. Even the abundant details given 
of his physical appearance, though mostly con- 
ceived according to the standard of Hindu beauty, 
contain particulars not easy to explain on the 
hypothesis of a pure a priori creation.* 

Such is the problem to which M. Senart applies 
his firm and sagacious criticism. M. Senart's first 
essays on the legend of Buddha appeared in the 
Journal Asiatique from August, 1873, to Septem- 
ber, 1875. They at once enlisted the attention of 
cultured readers. Before M. Senart, M. Vassiliew 

* See Burnouf's ' Lotus de la Bonne Loi,' p. 553 and 
following. 



142 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



had reduced almost to nothing the historical part 
played by Buddha ; but the true reasons for 
doubt were not assigned. M. Senart was the first 
to point out that the narrative hitherto called the 
life of Buddha is less a legendary biography than 
a purely mythological construction, formed of pre- 
existing elements, mostly of naturalistic origin. 
Placing more accurately than others had done 
before him the Buddhistic legend in its Hindu 
surroundings, M. Senart endeavoured to prove 
that this legend is but the development of the cycle 
of ideas which Brahminism grouped round Vishnu 
Narayana.* A skilful comparison with Krishnaism 
served to explain in what light these mythological 
evolutions of a primitive naturalism are to be 
understood. Instead of seeing in the life of 
Buddha the product of divers influences foreign to 
India, M. Senart scarcely considers it an inven- 
tion at all. To him Buddhism is simply the ex- 
pansion of popular Brahminism. He bases his 
arguments chiefly upon two of the records which 
were types of Buddha's legend: the Tchakravartin,i 
and the Mahapuruscha. M. Senart thinks those 
words have had ascribed to them too literal and 

* The waters are called Ndrd. or 'the spirit' of God 
(Vishnu) ; and since they were his first Aydna, or place of 
motion, he thence is named ' Narayana,' 'moving on the 
waters.-' — Translator's Note. 

f He who sets the wheel {chakra, Vishnu's discus) in 
motion ; it also means, according to Wilson, he who abides 
(yartatte) or rules over an extensive territory called a Chakra 
( Chakra-verrti).— Translator's Note. 



NEW WORKS ON BUDDHISM. 



143 



historic an interpretation. He seeks for their 
meaning in Brahminism, and further back in 
naturalism. This leads him to conclude that 
Buddha was a technical expression rather than a 
personality — a dogma rather than an historical 
reality. Unlike M. Vassiliew and M. Kern,* he 
does not deny the existence of a real personage 
who may have served as a support for the legend, 
if not as its substratum ; but he regards all 
attempts at discriminating the myth from the 
reality as doomed to failure. According to M. 
Senart, the legend of Buddha is no greater proof 
of Sakya-Mouni's existence than the Mahabrarata 
and the Puranas are of Krishna's. 

In the revised and enlarged edition of the essays 
previously published in the Journal Asiatique, M. 
Senart has not sensibly modified any of his views ; 
he simply explains and develops them. M. Senart 
acknowledges that all sects have had a founder, 
Buddhism like the rest ; but he thinks too much 
historical consistency has been ascribed to Sakya- 
Mouni. His impression is that, by arbitrary altera- 
tions, a tissue of fables conceived apriori has com- 
placently been transformed into a kind of history, 
more or less truthful in appearance. Applied to 
a personage who, at a more or less definite period, 
in a more or less ascertained spot, may have had 
an historical existence, these legends seem to 
have absorbed a limited number of recollections 

* See Revue de VHistoire des Religions y Sept.-Oct., 1881 ; 
Jan.-Feb., March-April, 1882. 



144 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



founded on facts. ' The distinction is,' says M. 
Senart,* ' indeed, rather difficult to establish. . . . 
All that looks suspicious must not necessarily be 
rejected. Yet it does not follow that all which, 
strictly speaking, seems admissible should be re- 
tained. There is no so-called god — neither 
Vishnu, nor Krishna, nor Hercules — of whom a 
sufficiently reasonable biography might not be 
constructed by a process similar to that which has 
hitherto been applied to the legend of Buddha.' 

The point where M. Senart completely triumphs, 
is when he develops the idea that the legend of 
Buddha is not at all the peculiar property of 
Buddhism ; that it is an adaptation — a new version 
of traditions long popular and previously unified in 
the cycle of Vishnu. A human master was substi- 
tuted for the divine master of Vishnuism. ' The 
human doctor, Sakya-Mouni, or whatever his real 
name may have been, inherited the legendary cloak 
that fell from the shoulders of the dispossessed god. 
Anxiety and discouragement, so natural to the 
Hindus, recovered in human guise the consolations 
and the hopes of divine visits. All the school 
could succeed in doing towards preserving the in- 
tegrity of the theory was to suppress divine per- 
petuity, to mask celestial origins, to humanize, by 
the method of Euemerus, applied no doubt uncon- 
sciously, the whole theory and myth.'t 

As early as 1874 the author of the present 

* ' Essai sur la Legende de Buddha,' p. 142. 
t Ibid., p. 455- 



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145 



article, being called upon, as secretary of the 
Societe Asiatique, to report on M. Senart's work,* 
thought fit to make some reserve in that respect. 
'India,' he said, ' having remained mythological 
much longer and to a much greater degree than any 
other country, requires special precautions. Else- 
where ideal and real biographies may very well 
co-exist. Yes, assuredly the life of Buddha was, 
as it were, written beforehand. The statue of the 
hermit who lived in the sixth century before Christ 
was cast in a mould which fixed his most insig- 
nificant features before his birth. The proof of 
this is that vast literature of the Djatakas, which 
shows us the Buddha, living thousands of times, 
under divers names and circumstances, the same 
life he is to live when born on earth. But the 
book of the " Conformites " also shows us the life 
of Francis of Assisi as realizing a previous ideal, 
which is no other than the life of Christ. Yet 
Francis of Assisi is quite a real personage, whose 
period and life are well known to us. Was not 
the life of Christ itself written in the so-called 
Messianic prophecies ? Like the Tchakravartin, 
like the Mahapuruscha, like the Buddha, the Jewish 
Messiah was also, in some sort, depicted a priori. 
Certain parts of his biography could not be other 
than they were ; and the influence of the legend 
would of itself have been sufficiently powerful to 
force the reality, whatever it were, into conformity 

6 Journal Asiatique, July, 1874, pp. 20, 21 ; July, 1875, 
pp. 18, 19; July, 1876, pp.^i, 32. 

10 



146 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



with the ideal delineated in the texts. But for all 
that the Messianic ideal was represented in time and 
space by a real person. Let us proclaim this truth : 
in criticism there are no two cases alike ; what is - 
true respecting one epoch, country, or race, may 
not with equal accuracy apply to another race, 
country, or„ epoch. And yet I can hardly believe 
that, even in India, the legend does not imply 
some historical truth. The general colouring, or 
at least the general sentiment, may often, despite 
the falsity of all details, imply some higher truth, 
truer than material truth, in which the chances of 
incidents often hold a prominent place.' 

In an excellent criticism recently devoted to the 
latest works on the religions of India,* M. Barth, 
one of the most learned of our contemporaries in 
the whole range of Indian studies, makes similar 
observations. M. Barth admits that the Buddha's 
biography is so penetrated by solar myths that we 
must resign ourselves to knowing little that is 
positive about it. The historical kernel preserved 
by M. Barth is, however, more considerable than 
that retained by M. Senart : in support of the 
myths, the former admits a real person very 
attractive in the eyes of the people : ' Even if the 
life of Krishna were despoiled of half its wonders, 
and that of Buddha loaded still more with the 
supernatural, the former would still be the life of 
a god, and the latter of a man.' 

m Revue de IHistoire des Religions, February 10, 1882, 
p. 23 and following of the reprint. 



NEW WORKS ON BUDDHISM. 



147 



Those reserves seem just and necessary. Does 
not the very name of Sakya point to some real 
historical personage ? Is not the much more 
humane and moral character displayed by Bud- 
dhism, when compared with the other creeds of 
India, a sufficient reason for believing its origin 
to have been different • from the origins of Vish- 
nuism or Krishnaism ? Let us take Chris- 
tianity in the fourth century, in the time of 
Julian. Let us suppose that all the Christian 
works of the first, second, and third centuries had 
been destroyed. In comparing the Christianity 
and the Paganism of that period, at Antioch, for 
instance, a sagacious mind might well say : ' Apollo, 
Jupiter, Venus have never been real living per- 
sonages ; but, at the origin of Christianity, there 
is an historical fact connected with a real founder.' 
In like manner the legends of Krishna and Vishnu 
on the one side, and that of Sakya-Mouni on the 
other, present striking differences. The latter 
bears a stamp of reality of which the others are 
totally devoid. In the first case, we feel we have 
before us a god possessing no earthly reality ; in 
the second, a man totally transfigured by legends. 

It is true that, between the life of a humanized 
god and that of a deified man, the distinction 
may often be difficult to detect. In such questions, 
as M. Senart well remarks, if too rigid, one runs 
the risk of losing many truths ; if too easy, one 
may fall into many snares. Experience, which in 
physical and natural sciences is the proof of hypo- 

10 — 2 



148 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



thesis, cannot apply to such matters. There is 
no final appeal between those who have denied 
and those who have affirmed too much ; for the 
phenomena whose character is to be appreciated 
disappeared centuries ago, and the possibility of 
reproducing them is lost for ever. 

Perhaps it is necessary to make similar reserves 
respecting M. Senart's views on the originality of 
Buddhism. The word ' originality ' may be taken 
in various acceptations. Christianity at its birth 
is composed wholly of Jewish ideas already in 
existence ; and yet Christianity at its birth is a 
fact of undoubted originality. The duty of criti- 
cism is at the same time to disentangle the errors 
inherent in popular accounts, and to preserve the 
part played by individuals, without which we 
cannot explain the past. Criticism is an anatomy 
which must not destroy the life of the subject it 
studies. At least it is well to give legends their 
legitimate place by the side of analytical researches. 
Legends have a foundation of their own, and to 
sacrifice them is to sacrifice one half of history. 

II. 

M. Senart so thoroughly understood this that 
he resolved himself to publish one of those texts 
whose deficiency in historical value he has exposed 
better than anyone else. Such a task is an un- 
grateful one, and, as a rule, but indifferently 
rewarded. We can hardly hope for new results 



NEW WORKS ON BUDDHISM. 



from the publication of the Nepalese Sutras. 
Though, since Burnouf s time, our views concern- 
ing the real biography of Sakya-Mouni have been 
modified, yet the essential lines of Buddhistic 
philosophy, as defined by that great master, have 
required scarcely any alteration. The texts read 
by Burnouf were the most important, and he 
understood them perfectly. The impression at 
first produced by those texts was sometimes 
erroneous, because by the side of the philosophical 
books of a religion there is the popular interpreta- 
tion, which may be quite different from the specu- 
lations of doctors. Anyone acquainted with Chris- 
tianity only through St. Augustin's works would 
be greatly deluded if he imagined that they could 
teach him the religion of Spanish or Calabrian 
peasants. That which is written is not the whole 
of a religion, though 'what is writ is writ.' The 
Buddhistic texts, whether Nepalese or Singalese, 
remain important documents ; and M. Senart was 
quite justified in thinking that, to complete the 
programme of solid studies he drew out for him- 
self, he must undertake the publication of some 
of those great writings which by their prolixity 
had disheartened all scientific zeal less ardent 
than Burnouf's. 

Four or five Nepalese Sutras, the ' Lalitavistara,' 
the ' Lotus of the Good Law,' the ' Vajrachedika,' 
the ' Sukhavativyuha Sutra,' the ' Meghasutra,'* 

° M. Senart points out to me Rajendralal Mitra's work, 
'iThe Sanscrit Buddhist Literature of Nepal,' Calcutta, 1882, 



ISO NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



have been placed within the reach of European 
readers. Desirous of widening this too narrow 
circle, M. Senart selected the ' Mahavastou,' the 
choice of which he justified by very good reasons. 
Of all unpublished Buddhistic Nepalese texts, the 
' Mahavastou ' is certainly the most important 
one to be well acquainted with. Burnouf pointed 
it out several times, and would, no doubt, have 
undertaken it had not premature death snatched 
him from science. It is the chief manual of 
Buddha's life, analogous to the ' Lalitavistara,' for 
one of the sects or schools into which Buddhism 
is divided ; it is the only specimen we possess of 
the section Vinaya. Besides, as regards the 
language, it is a treatise of paramount interest. 
The language of the ' Mahavastou ' is the Gathas 
dialect, which had only been met with before in 
the metrical texts. Here it is employed in prose 
as well as in verse. These are the reasons which 
a few years ago determined the Societe Asiatique 
to include the ' Mahavastou ' in its published col- 
lection of Oriental works (' Collection d'Ouvrages 
orientaux'). The text is printed by M. Senart 
with the most minute care, and all the variations 
are indicated. The translation of such a prolix 
work in its entirety would have been impossible. 
M. Senart 's introduction contains an extensive 
analysis, which almost does duty for a translation. 



as an excellent compendium of Nepalese Buddhistic litera- 
ture. 



NEW WORKS 'ON BUDDHISM. 



Lastly, a vast commentary gives an account of all 
the grammatical difficulties. Here we see how 
skilful as a philologist is M. Senart. Having to 
deal with a text containing two idioms, or rather 
two different periods of the same idiom, he points 
out with rare sagacity the passage from the learned 
to the popular language, and also the return from 
the popular language to the learned one, in conse- 
quence of the pedantry of the transcribers. When 
completed, M. Senart's work will be in three 
volumes. Nothing does more honour to our 
century than the minute attention given to texts 
trivial in themselves, but important to the history 
of mankind. In philology no detail is useless. 
An indifferent text often teaches as much as a 
masterpiece. A peculiarity, which at first sight 
seems insignificant, may later on become a funda- 
mental element in the solution of important 
problems. 

III. 

While applying the highest and most acute 
criticism to the texts of the manuscripts, M. 
Senart also availed himself of the invaluable aid of 
epigraphy. Taking up, with the help of Cunning- 
ham's ' Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum,' the 
work in which Princep, Burnouf, Kern, Biihler 
had already made a great advance, he has pro- 
gressed most satisfactorily with the interpretation 
of Asoka-Piyadasi's edicts. The character of that 
sovereign, the founder of the most extensive power 



152 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



existing in India previous to the Christian era, 
the second successor of that Sandracottus whose 
date is the first fixed point in the uncertain chrono- 
logy of India, will soon be known in all its details. 
Thanks to the frequent repetition of the same 
texts, M. Senart has been able to complete the 
inscriptions one by the other, and to arrive at a 
certainty seldom afforded by an isolated epigraphic 
text. 

The epigraphy of all nations does not present 
anything more singular than these long pious 
edicts which the Buddhist Constantine scattered 
over the country in order to instruct and edify 
the people.*" They show the ideal of a State 
religion, organized in its most insignificant details, 
employing a numerous staff of functionaries, im- 
posed upon the people for their happiness, and 
multiplying the means. of teaching. The precepts 
given to the people are based on a respect for 
life which even prohibits the killing of animals. 
The king, who often confesses his faults, acknow- 
ledges that, formerly, some misdeeds were per- 
petrated in his kitchen. ' But at the time of this 
edict being engraved,' he adds, 'three animals 
only are slaughtered for my table — two peacocks 
and a gazelle ; and the last not as a rule. In 
future, even these three animals will no longer 
be destroyed. 't The king applies his authority, 

° See the legendary accounts in Burnouf 's ' Introduction 
a l'Histoire du Buddhisme indien,' pp. 370, 371. 
f ' Inscriptions de Piyadasi,' p. 62. 



NEW WORKS ON BUDDHISM. 



153 



which is absolute, to multiply useful trees and 
medicinal herbs everywhere ;* to plant the roads 
with mango-trees, which shelter both men and 
animals from the scorching heat of the sun ; to 
have pools and wells dug at frequent intervals ; to 
establish caravansaries for travellers. t The aim 
of Government is the well-being, the universal 
happiness, of men and beasts. I All good is 
summed up in religion. ' Thus says King Piya- 
dasi, beloved of the devas : " Religion is an ex- 
cellent thing. But what is religion ? Religion is 
the least possible evil, much good, piety, charity, 
veracity, and also purity of life . . . ." '§ The 
organization of religion is thus the chief duty of 
government. For that purpose, the king appoints 
inspectors, distinct from the clergy and the religious 
orders, whose work is of a higher importance than 
religious creeds and practices : namely, to promote 
humanity, good behaviour, and reverence. [| 

' Thus says King Piyadasi, beloved of the 
devas :1f " In the twenty-seventh year after my 
coronation I caused this edict to be engraved. 

* 'Inscriptions de Piyadasi,' p. 74. 

f Ibid., p. 74 ; Journal Asiatique, April- June, 1882, p. 410 ; 
August-September, 1882, p. 132. 

X Journal A siatiqite, April-June, 1882, p. 410. 

§ Ibid., April-June, 1882, pp. 409, 410 ; August-Septem- 
ber, 1882, p. 133. Compare ' Inscriptions de Piyadasi,' pp. 
239, 240. 

|| ' Inscriptions de Piyadasi,' pp. 91, 92, 113, 114, 143, 144, 
l 72> ; Journal Asiatiqne, April-June, 1882, pp. 113, 131-133 ; 
August-September, 1882, pp. 404, 435, 436. 

IT Journal Asiatiqne, April-June, 1882, p. 404. 



154 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 

Happiness in this world and in the next is hard 
to attain, unless [my officers will display] extreme 
zeal for religion, strict supervision, extreme obe- 
dience, a most lively sense of responsibility, and 
extreme activity. But, thanks to my instructions, 
that care, that zeal for religion are growing and 
will grow [with them] from day to day. And my 
officers — superior, subaltern, and of middle rank — 
conform themselves, and lead [the people] in the 
right path, so as to keep their consciences un- 
burdened. In the same way the inspectors of the 
border-countries proceed. For this is the rule : 
government by religion, law by religion, progress 
by religion, security by religion." ' 

' Religious progress* among men is obtained in 
two ways : by positive rules, and by the senti- 
ments with which we inspire them. But, of these 
two, positive rules have little value ; inspiration 
alone gives rules their power. For instance, I 
make a positive rule when I forbid the killing of 
this or that animal, and in many other religious 
edicts which I have issued. But it is only in the 
modification of personal sentiments that we 
clearly trace the progress of religion ; in the 
[general] respect for life, in the care we take not 
to sacrifice any being. It is with that object I 
have had this inscription made, that it may last 
for my sons and grandsons, that it may last as 
long as the sun and the moon, that my posterity 
may follow my teachings ; for, in pursuing this 

Journal Asiatique, August-September, 1882, pp. 133, 134. 



NEW WORKS ON BUDDHISM. 155 



path, we shall secure happiness here and in the 
next world.' 

Some of these passages, written in the time 
of the successors of Alexander, are like maxims 
of Marcus Aurelius engraved on stone 420 years 
beforehand. ' Thus says King Piyadasi, beloved 
of the devas :* " Men only see their good deeds ; 
they say to themselves : ' I accomplished such 
and such good deeds.' But men do not see 
the evil they are guilty of ; they do not say : ' I 
committed such and such bad deeds. . . .' It 
is true that this self-examination is painful ; yet it 
is necessary that we should watch over ourselves, 
and say : ' Such and such feelings are sinful — 
violence of temper, cruelty, wrath, pride.' We 
must keep strict watch over ourselves, and say : 
' I will not give way to envy, I will not calumniate ; 
that will be for my greatest good in the present 
life ; that will indeed be for my greatest good in 
the future life.' " ' 

The following law, relating to criminals sen- 
tenced to death, was dictated by a lofty idealism : 
' From this day,t [I introduce] the [following] 
rule : to prisoners tried and sentenced to death 
I grant a respite of three days [previous to their 
execution].^ They will be told the exact time 
they have to live, so that being forewarned of the 
end of their life they may distribute alms and 

* Journal Asiatique, April- June, 1882, p. 417. 
t Ibid., April- June, 1882, p. 436. 
+ Sic in orig. 



156 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



practise fasting. I wish that, though imprisoned, 
they may secure their hereafter. I wish them to 
observe the divers practices of religion, control 
over the senses, and almsgiving.' 

What we should least expect to find in such 
enactments, is freedom of worship. It is, however, 
unequivocally proclaimed. This is the seventh 
edict. : ' King Piyadasi, beloved of the devas, wishes 
all sects to dwell, unmolested, in all places, it 
being, indeed, the object of such sects to subdue 
the senses, and to attain purity of soul ; but the 
soul is fickle in its resolutions — changeful in its 
pursuits. They will, therefore, practise [their rules] 
wholly or in part.'* 

The sects meant by Piyadasi were religious 
orders rather than religions different from each 
other. Piyadasi saw clearly that, in religious 
matters, we often find the same principles con- 
cealed under widely different aspects : ' King Piya- 
dasi, beloved of the devas, honours all sects ;t 
ascetics and heads of families he honours by alms 
and all sorts of honours. But the [king], beloved 
of the devas, attaches less importance to those 
alms and honours than to the desire he has to see 
the reign of [the moral virtues which constitute] 
their essential part. Such a reign would involve, 
it is true, many differences. Yet, for all, it has a 
common basis, which is moderation of language 

' Inscriptions de Piyadasi,' pp. 181-192 (see also p. 143) ; 
Journal Asiatique, August-September, 1882, p. 132. 
f ' Inscriptions de Piyadasi,' pp. 263-265. 



NEW WORKS ON BUDDHISM. 



— that is, we must not extol our own sect and 
decry others ; we must not underrate others 
without legitimate cause ; we must rather, on every 
occasion, render to other sects the honours they 
merit. By acting thus, we shall further the 
progress of our own sect, and at the same time 
serve the others. He who extols his own sect, 
and runs down others, does so, no doubt, with the 
intention of making his own prominent ; but by 
acting thus, he only deals a most severe blow to 
his own sect. For this reason, concord alone is 
good in the sense that all shall listen willingly to 
each others' opinions. It is, indeed, the wish of 
the [king] , beloved of the devas, that all sects 
may become learned, that they may profess pure 
doctrines. All, of whatever faith, must say to 
themselves that the king, beloved of the devas, 
attaches less importance to almsgiving and to 
outward observances than to the wish he has to 
see the reign of essential truths and respect shown 
to all sects. It is to this end that the inspectors 
of religion, the officers appointed to watch over 
women, the superintendents, and other classes of 
functionaries, direct their efforts. The result is 
the advancement of my own belief, and the 
progress of religion.' 

6 Men,' again says the royal moralist, ' observe 
various customs in illness, on the marriage of a 
son or daughter, on the birth of a child, when 
starting on a journey. But those practices, ob- 
served by the majority, are vain and worthless. 



158 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



Their observance is necessary ; yet they bear no 
fruit. The practice of religion, on the contrary, 
produces striking results ; such as consideration 
for slaves and servants, respect for parents and 
masters, gentleness to all living creatures, charity 
to Sramanas and Brahmins. Such things as 
these I call the practice of religion.'* 

The thirteenth edict is extremely puzzling. It is 
that in whose interpretation M. Senart has made 
most progress compared with his predecessors. 
' Immense is the Kalinga,t conquered by King 
Piyadasi, the devas 1 beloved. Hundreds of thou- 
sands of creatures were carried away from there ; 
a hundred thousand were wounded there ; many 
times that number died there. Then the king, 
the beloved of the devas, applied .himself to re- 
ligion ; he conceived zeal, he strove to diffuse it ; 
so greatly did the devas 1 beloved king regret [what 
took place] in the conquest of the Kalinga. . . . 
In fact, the devas 1 beloved king desires safety for 
all creatures, respect for life, peace and kindness. 
These are what the devas 1 beloved king considers 
as the conquests of religion. It is in those re- 
ligious conquests that the devas' beloved king finds 
pleasure, either within his dominions or along all 
his frontiers, throughout an extent of many hun- 
dreds of yojanas.% Among his [neighbours are] 

° ' Inscriptions de Piyadasi,' pp. 227-228. Compare p. 249. 
f Ibid., pp. 308-511. 

J A topographical measure equal to about seven English 
miles.— Translator's Note. 



NEW WORKS ON BUDDHISM. 



159 



Antiochus, King of the Yavanas, and north of that 
Antiochus, four kings : Ptolemy, Antigonus, Magas, 
Alexander. In the south the Codas, the Pamdyas, 
as far as to Tamdapanni ; and also the King of 
the Huns (?), Vismavasi (?). Among the Greeks 
and the Kambojas, the Nabhakas and the Nabha- 
pamptis, the Bhojas and the Petenikas, the 
Andhras and the Pulindas, everywhere they con- 
form to the religious instructions of the devas' 
beloved king. Wherever the envoys of the devas' 
beloved king were sent, the people having, on 
behalf of the devas' beloved king, been told the 
duties of religion, conform, and always will con- 
form to religious instructions, to religion, that 
barrier against .... It is thus that all places 
have been conquered, and I have felt an inward 
joy ; such is the contentment afforded by the con- 
quests of religion. But, to tell the truth, content- 
ment is a secondary consideration, and the devas' 
beloved king attaches value only to the rewards 
of a future state. This is why this religious in- 
scription has been engraved, that our sons and 
grandsons may not believe they are to make fresh 
conquests. They must not think that conquests 
by means of arrows deserve the name of con- 
quests ; they are but disturbances and violence. 
The conquests of religion alone are real conquests : 
they hold good for this world and the next. Let 
my sons delight only in the pleasures of religion ; 
for these alone are of value both in this world and 
in the next.' 



160 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



Piyadasi delights to dwell upon his conversion, 
which, it appears, was the result of a strong 
moral impression.* ' In the past, kings used to 
join in parties of pleasure. Hunting and similar 
pursuits used to be their delight. In the thirteenth 
year of my coronation, I, King Piyadasi, beloved 
of the devas, have gained wisdom. My goings 
forth are only for religious duties, viz. : alms- 
giving to Brahmins and Sramanas, visiting the 
aged, distributing money, visiting the people of 
the empire, teaching religion, taking counsel on 
religious matters. It is thus that from the time of 
his conversion King Piyadasi, the beloved of the 
devas, has enjoyed, in exchange for worldly joys, 
the satisfaction arising from good actions. 'f And 
elsewhere : ' All men are my children ; as I wish 
for my children all prosperity and bliss in this 
world and in the next, so do I wish for all men.'l 

IV. 

Texts such as these, whose originals we may 
almost be said to possess, and which cast such a 
bright light upon the state of India in the middle 
of the third century before Christ, are of paramount 
interest. It is remarkable that, in the fourteen 
edicts, properly so called, Sakya-Mouni's name is 

* See the legendary account in Eugene Burnouf s ' Intro- 
duction a. l'Histoire du Buddhisme indien,' p. 358 and fol- 
lowing. 

j- ' Inscriptions de Piyadasi,' pp. J96, 197. 

% Journal Asiatiqite, February-March, 1883, pp. 211, 229. 



NEW WORKS ON BUDDHISM. 



161 



not mentioned once, nor does Buddhism appear as 
a distinct religion.* The king speaks in the name 
of religion itself, not in favour of some special 
creed, opposed to other existing forms of worship. 
In the inscriptions of Bhabhra and Sahasaram or 
Rupnath, on the contrary, which are also Piya- 
dasi's,t Buddhism is expressly professed. This 
silence need not astonish us. It is exactly the 
attitude assumed, in the second century after 
Christ, by Christian apologists, who scarcely ever 
name Jesus, and never separate Him from the 
tradition of the previous prophets. In like manner 
the unity of Hindu religion is, for Piyadasi, a fact 
everywhere understood. An important passage 
in the inscription of Sahasaram or Rupnath would 
seem to signify, according to M. Biihler's inter- 
pretation : ' The gods who, in the Jamboudvipa, 
were regarded as true gods, I caused to be recog- 
nised as men and false gods.' But such a thought 
is so little Buddhistic that M. Senart thinks it 
must not be accepted ; he is of opinion that 
the passage is susceptible of quite a different 
meaning. 

Indeed, we must no longer think of Buddhism 
as a religion distinct from Brahminism, having 
had in India a beginning and an end marked by 
characteristic events. Buddhism marks a period 

* Note, however, the word ' Sambodhi ' in the eighth of the 
fourteen edicts, pp. 183-197. 

f See, on this point, Journal Asiatique^ August-September, 
1882, p. 103 and following. 

II 



1 62 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



in Hindu religion — it is a form under which that 
religion was marvellously successful in proselytism 
in regions foreign to India ; but that is not the ex- 
clusive privilege of Buddhism. Hinduism, under 
all its forms, has exercised a most profound in- 
fluence upon Eastern Asia. Long ago its monu- 
ments were discovered in Java and Bali. In our 
time, Cambodia has revealed to us still more im- 
portant proofs of its influence. 

What, indeed, are those curious monuments of 
Angkor, and others of the same kind, about which 
such rash hypotheses have been formed ? They 
are monuments of Hindu religion, devoid of any 
special distinction. Are they Buddhistic or 
Brahminic ? They are both at the same time. 
There would not have been so much uncertainty 
on this point had we sooner applied ourselves to 
deciphering the inscriptions on those monuments. 
Thanks to the splendid researches of MM. Ber- 
gaigne, Barth, and Senart, the problem is now 
solved. These extraordinary structures, which 
were at first supposed to be the remains of primi- 
tive art, are now ascribed with certainty to the 
ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries of our era. 
In them Sivaism and Buddhism are blended ; 
and Sivaism appears here even before Buddhism. 

The mission entrusted to M. Aymonier in 
Indo-China, and which he fulfils with such 
laudable activity, will much increase the number 
of these inscriptions, and fill up many gaps in the 
history of India. Thus we see Sanscrit in its turn 



NEW WORKS ON BUDDHISM. 



163 



entering the path of epigraphy, like Greek and 
Latin, and the ancient Semitic dialects. When, 
from manuscripts (and, as regards India, we know 
that hers do not go back very far), philology has 
derived a knowledge of the language and the 
chief texts, it longs to meet with specimens of the 
old writing, to lay hold, so to speak, of the very 
autographs of the past. As a rule, philology 
is revived by this prolific contact, and criticism 
acquires a certainty which the intervention of 
copyists always weakens — the accuracy of a text 
being in inverse ratio to the number of copyists 
intervening between us and the original. 

The relation between Buddhism and Brah- 
minism has sometimes been compared with the 
relation between Christianity and Judaism. The 
opposition between the two Hindu creeds has 
been, in reality, much less marked than that of the 
two religions that sprang from Israel. Buddhism 
might be compared to Franciscanism (if the word 
may be allowed), as it existed in the thought of 
the zealous Franciscan friars, with the idea that 
Francis was a second Christ, the founder in this 
world of the reign of poverty. The Franciscan 
monk, like the Buddhist mendicant, is loved by 
the people, who contrast his sanctity with the pro- 
fane lives of a wealthy clergy who have become 
unpopular. The Franciscan rule, like the Bud- 
dhistic law, in the thought of the partisans of the 
' Eternal Gospel,' was destined to become the uni- 
versal law. Had the Franciscan missionaries 



164 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



succeeded in converting entire countries, as the 
Jesuits did in Paraguay, they would certainly 
have established their legend of the 'Conformites;' 
and such ideas, when they had disappeared 
from the land of their birth, might have been 
met with in remote colonies in the shape of 
peculiar dogmas. 

Progress, in many classes of studies, consists in 
seeing that certain explanations, with which we 
were satisfied at first, need to be modified. 
Buddhism springing to life at a given moment 
from the preaching of one man, and ending at 
another given moment through the persecutions 
of its enemies — this is an idea which must cer- 
tainly be modified. Buddhism, like Vishnuism, 
like Krishnaism, was the outcome of momentary 
requirements; it was one of those religious fashions 
in which the Indian mind delights. As to the 
persecutions or religious wars which, in India, 
may have put an end to the rule of Buddha, there 
are no considerable traces of them to be found. 
Sometimes the Buddhist preacher may have been 
insulted by those whose prejudices he offended. 
' If he who teaches be attacked, while speaking, 
with stones, sticks, and spears, if he be insulted 
and threatened, let him think of me and endure 
all.'* Sometimes, even, he may have suffered 
martyrdom.-)- But religions do not sink under 

* Burnouf s ' Lotus de la Bonne Loi/ p. 144 ; Foucaux's 
' L'Enfant egare/ p. 18. 

+ Bournoufs ' Introduction a THistoire du Buddhisme 
indien/ p. 248 and following. 



NEW WORKS ON BUDDHISM. 



165 



such trilling misadventures. Hiouen-Thsang's 
account of the Buddhist massacres, ordered by 
King Mahirakoula, and of the patience displayed 
by the victims,* is, no doubt, most striking. On 
the death of their persecutor, the saints on whom 
he bestowed the crown of martyrdom experience 
only a feeling of pity : ' How far he is still,' they 
say, ' from the term of transmigration !' But 
Hiouen-Thsang in nowise connects that episode 
with the destruction of Buddhism in India ; it 
had taken place many centuries before the voyage 
of the Chinese pilgrim. t 

The disappearance of Buddhist Sanscrit books 
from India, Nepal excepted, is at first sight a 
surprising fact. But we must remember that, in 
Hindustan, books do not last long, and a work 
that is not assiduously re-copied is doomed to 
perish. The favour with which Sakya-Mouni's 
legends were received in the third century before 
Christ was changed during the following cen- 
turies into strong antipathy ;J but, in the mean- 
time, ardent apostles had carried the doctrine of 
deliverance to those Mongol races, in whose midst 
nihilism has always found its securest stronghold. 
The quiet image of Buddha tranquillised the con- 
sciences of thousands of millions of human beings ; 
for centuries it subdued that feeling of revolt which 

* ' Mdmoires sur les Contrees occidentales,' translation of 
Stanislas Julien, vol. i., pp. 196, 197. 
+ Ibid., p. 190. 

% Tbiodore Pavie in the Journal Asiatique, March, 1841, 
p. 203. 



1 66 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



a sad conception of life and a defective social state 
make endemic in the central parts of the old 
continent. 

In becoming a popular religion, Buddhism, like 
Christianity, adopted means to which it never had 
recourse at the outset. The truth of the saying 
that anything will produce anything is chiefly 
illustrated in the history of religions. A religion 
idealistic in its origin may become gross paganism 
with a different race : a religion quite without 
philosophy may become almost purely meta- 
physical. This explains the strange contrast 
between these Buddhist Sutras, founded upon a 
kind of atheistic or nihilistic philosophy, and 
the popular religion of which they are the basis — 
a religion, to all appearance, so similar to 
Catholicism that it might at first sight have been 
mistaken for it. In his edicts, Acoka speaks of 
eternal salvation just as a Christian would. 

One of the most touching anecdotes in the 
' Mahavastou'* is that of the King of Kalinga, who 
disbelieved the promises of a future life, declaring 
that he would change his faith only if his father, 
whose virtues must have secured him paradise if 
such a place existed, should return in order to 
convince him of its reality. The Buddha appeared 
to him in his father's shape, and in consequence 
the king renounced his false doctrine. 

The Buddha delights in thus gratifying every- 
one. While crossing a burning plain, millions of 
* Senart's edition, p. 38. 



NEW WORKS ON BUDDHISM. 167 



devas and genii hasten to open parasols over his 
head. The blessed one multiplies himself into as 
many lesser buddhas as there are parasols, in order 
that all his attendants may have the satisfaction 
of believing their pious attention accepted. On one 
occasion Buddha finds himself on the banks of an 
unfordable river. Some beneficent spirits at once 
build several bridges for him. The blessed one 
multiplies himself according to the number of 
bridges, and everyone believes the Buddha to 
have crossed over his own bridge, in preference to 
the others.* A more exact image could not be 
found for expressing the way in which religious 
symbols transform themselves, so as to appeal to 
most different consciences, without, however, losing 
their unity and the mark of their origin ; and, if it 
may be permitted to call to mind a strophe from 
a theological poem of quite a different origin : 

' Sumit unus, sumunt mille, 
Quantum isti, tantum ille, 
Nec sumptus consumitur.' 



* 1 Mahavastou,' p. 48. Cf. ' Essai sur la Legende du 
Buddha,' p. 291. These miracles of ubiquity please the 
Hindu fancy. When Krishna dances with one of the shep- 
herdesses of the Bradj, each of them believes he danced wit 
herself. 



THE TRANSLATIONS OF THE BIBLE* 



Besides the immense service which the Jews 
rendered to the world in the matter of religion, 
by converting it to the belief in one God, we 
cannot deny that they have also been of the 
greatest service to us in the matter of science. 
But for the Jews, the Hebrew Bible, one of 
the most important monuments of history 
and philology, would have ceased to exist. It 
is certain that had Christianity completely ab- 
sorbed Judaism in the first centuries of our era, 
the Hebrew text of the Bible would have been 
lost. Early Christians seem to have very seldom 
taken the trouble to consult it; according to 
the country they lived in, they were satisfied 
with Greek, Latin, or Syriac versions ; and even 
their arguments respecting the Scriptures are often 
based only upon expressions used in those versions. 
Almost all of the rare cases in which the Fathers 
of the Church appeal to the Hebrew text occur 
in their controversies with the Jews, and their 
arguments are then taken in most cases from 
the literal version of Aquila. Origen and St. 
Jerome are the only exceptions to the foregoing 
* Journal des Debats, December 8, 1858. 



THE TRANSLATIONS OF THE BIBLE. 169 



rule ; but they were both pupils of the Rabbis, 
and, though the latter certainly did credit to his 
masters, it must be confessed that the former was 
but a very poor Hebrew scholar. Besides, we 
know the mortifications which the attempt, always 
suspicious in pious ears, to appeal to the veritable 
Hebrew text, cost St. Jerome, and also the 
terrible things he was compelled to hear and 
even to speak,* until, become wiser, he realized 
the fact that silence alone should be opposed to 
such violent anger. t In the Middle Ages again 
the Synagogue furnished the Church with the 
only creditable Hebrew scholars it possessed — 
Raymond Martini, Nicolas de Lyre, Paul of Burgos. 
Lastly, the Renaissance applied to Jewish masters 
for the grammatical instruction which, long after, 
became so fruitful in the hands of European 
scholars. 

The preservation of the original monuments of 
Hebrew literature thus appears to have been ex- 
clusively due to the Jews. Do we appreciate what 
would have been the enormous loss to the sum of 
human knowledge, if the text of the Hebrew 

* ' Latrantes canes qui adversum me rabido ore desasviunt 
et circumeunt civitatem ' (Prologus Galeatus). 1 Hydras si- 
bilantes ' {Prcef. inEsdr.). ' Me fasarium, me clamitant esse 
sacrilegum, qui audeam aliquid in veteribus libris addere, 
mutare, corrigere' (Free/, in Evang.). Cf. Prolog, in Job> in 
Fs., in Dan. 

t ' Rectius fuerat modum furori eorum silentio meo ponere, 
quam quotidie novi aliquid scriptitantem invidorum insanias 
provocare ' (Pro! in Jerem.). 



170 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



writings had disappeared through the neglect 
of Christian scholars ? Not only would Semitic 
philology have been sterile, but the whole group 
of historical studies would have been incomplete 
in its most essential parts. Of the three or four 
telescopes through which we may obtain a glimpse 
of early ages, the most important would be wanting. 
In a religious point of view the consequences of 
such a loss would have been quite as serious. The 
most powerful lever of reformation would not 
have existed ; sound exegesis would have been 
impossible ; the critical spirit of modern times 
would have wanted the chief stimulus which led 
it to leave the narrow circle within which the 
humanists of the Renaissance and of the seven- 
teenth century tended to confine it. 

I do not wish to elevate the Jewish nation by 
depreciating two or three other families of the 
human race which, at the cost of their blood, have 
preserved for us the records of our origin. Two 
nations, above all, have in that respect the greatest 
resemblance to Israel, and share with it the glory 
of having, as depositaries of the secrets of the 
primitive world, laid the foundation of philological 
science : I mean the Brahmins and the Parsees. 
These two chosen races, like the people of 
Israel, seem to have had but one object in life 
— the preservation of a book ; they sacrificed to 
that duty all their other political or intellectual 
aims. The invaluable service which the Brahmins 
rendered to the human mind is not sufficiently 



THE TRANSLATIONS OF THE BIBLE. 171 



appreciated. I do not hesitate to say that next to 
the Jews we owe most gratitude to the Brahmins. 
The Jews gave us a religion far above any that 
might have sprung from the ideas of the race to 
which we belong ; but the Brahmins preserved for 
us Sanscrit and the Vedas — that is, the key to our 
origin, the primitive revelation of our ancestors, 
to which our conversion to Jewish ideas must not 
make us indifferent. 

A hundred years hence (if these studies, requir- 
ing a rare combination of skill, favourable circum- 
stances, and encouragements unlikely to be be- 
stowed in the future, be still progressing) it 
will be seen that the new element introduced by 
Sanscrit and the Vedas in the field of European 
criticism can only be compared with the unhoped- 
for texts with which the Greeks of the fifteenth 
century widened the circle of Latin studies. The 
marvellous care with which the Brahmins guarded 
the sacred deposit confided to them is quite as 
praiseworthy. Since M. Adolphe Regnier pub- 
lished the ' Pratisakya' of the Rigveda, we know 
that the Massorah of the Jews itself could not 
bear comparison with the wonderful system of 
precautions, thanks to which the Vedas have been 
handed down to us without the slightest variation. 
And on that subject I cannot repress an exclama- 
tion of pity. Harshness towards these thoughtful 
and serious races who have supplied our omissions 
is atrocious ingratitude. The England of the 
past too often forgot this. Her contempt, her 



ij2 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



want of comprehension for the Hindu people (I 
do not, of course, mean here the Mussulman 
dynasties, so guilty themselves towards that un- 
fortunate people) were a crime against humanity, 
almost as great as that committed by the Middle 
Ages in persecuting the Jews. Learned England 
now appreciates the service rendered to the 
human mind by those poor mendicants of the 
streets of Benares — excellent keepers of records, 
whom the future will rank with the Lascarises and 
the Bessarions. But she took her time over it. 
England did not at first realize the value of the 
treasures which India displayed to her. Her Cal- 
cutta scholars, her William Jones, her Colebrooke, 
though thoroughly conversant with Sanscrit, only 
looked upon Indian literature as one more among 
the literatures of Asia. When Germany had ap- 
plied to those ancient texts her critical genius — 
precious gift of the Teutonic race, which, it ap- 
pears, Hengist and Horsa forgot to take on board 
with them when they crossed the sea — then only 
was it recognised that they might contain another 
Bible, not indeed destined to popularity, but 
supplying the true genealogy of the gods long 
worshipped by our race. 

The Parsees, guardians of the Zend and of the 
books attributed to Zoroaster, though a worthy 
people, could not be compared with the Brahmins 
and the Jews. Certainly what they have taught us 
is of great importance. Without it the philological 
value of Sanscrit would not have been understood; 



THE TRANSLATIONS OF THE BIBLE. 173 



it was the comparison between the Iranian and 
the Brahminic worlds that proved the common 
ancestors of the Indo-European race to have 
had their first settlements in the north of Bac- 
triana, at a period when they still shared the same 
mythology, the same language, the same institu- 
tions. But it must be confessed that the trustees 
of those precious documents were far less scru- 
pulous in keeping their trust than the Jews and 
Brahmins. The text of the sacred writings of 
Persia was often revised ; their manuscripts were 
incorrect, and differed greatly from one another ; 
lastly, the exegesis of the Parsees was so defective, 
that European science was obliged to reconstruct 
it ; and the interpretation of the Zend-Avesta will 
probably always be incomplete. Had Anquetil- 
Duperron been born a century later, our position 
as regards those books would have been little 
different from that we occupy towards the most 
perplexing cuneiform inscriptions. 

In the question at issue, we must carefully dis- 
tinguish between the literal preservation of the 
sacred text and the preservation of its true sense. 
The world is generally surprised to hear modern 
philologists claim to understand the Vedas better 
than the Brahmins, and the Bible better than the 
ancient Jews. Nevertheless, nothing can be more 
simple. A practical knowledge of the modern 
tongues of the East helps us but little to under- 
stand these monuments. Critical acumen, keen- 
ness of mind, the fruits of European culture, are 



174 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



far more necessary. Philology is of modern crea- 
tion, and in consequence of the inexperience of 
the ancients in such studies, it often happened 
that for centuries texts were revered as sacred 
whose meaning was completely lost. As I have 
already said, the Parsees are pretty much in that 
case ; they transmitted their legacy to us as a 
sealed book, almost without understanding it, and 
of late years, when the ardour of the past was 
rekindled within them, they found nothing better 
to do than to follow the school of Eugene Burnouf. 
The Brahmins left us a Yedic exegesis, admirable 
from a grammatical point of view, but philosophi- 
cally weak. Sayana, theirgreat commentator, helps 
us no more to grasp the real meaning of the hymns 
of the Rigveda, than the scholastic arguments of 
St. Thomas Aquinas enable us to understand 
ancient Hebrew poetry. 

Here, again, the Jews have great advantages. 
Their exegetical tradition, though susceptible of 
improvement in many points, generally deserves to 
be taken into consideration. The knowledge of 
Biblical Hebrew never was lost to the Jews, 
and since the tenth century of our era they have 
possessed a system of teaching grammar copied 
from that of the Arabs. The perfection with which 
that great Arabico-Jewish school works is truly 
surprising. Modern science cannot improve upon 
it, and it may be said that Rabbi Jona, in the 
first half of the eleventh century, already skilfully 
applied the comparative methods which, seven or 



THE TRANSLATIONS OF THE BIBLE. 



175 



eight centuries later, were to give to European 
philology such incontestable superiority. 

In criticism even, the Jewish interpreters always 
held far more enlightened opinions than the 
Christian exegetics. Strange though it be, it is the 
fact that those who only adopted the Old Testament 
accepted it far more absolutely than the Israelites. 
The idea of a Biblical canon rigorously dividing in- 
spired from uninspired writings, is a Christian 
idea, not a Jewish one. ' Judaism,' says one of 
the most learned Israelites of our day, who is also 
an accomplished Orientalist,* ' though specially 
interested in the Old Testament, can accept with 
equanimity those truths respecting the age and 
the composition of the various parts of the Bible 
which no good and sound criticism can possibly 
ignore. Our old sages never conceived that hard 
and unyielding idea of a canon which the Christian 
Church created almost from the beginning. The 
ancient Rabbis of the Talmud admit with great 
simplicity their uncertainty as to whether they ought 
to suppress many a book whose authors are revered 
to-day as prophets and hagiographers. From the 
time of Saadia,t who looks upon ten verses as 
badly turned, down to that of Abraham Ben Ezra, \ 

* M. Darenbourg, 'Archives Israelites,' March, 1856, p. 158. 

t Saadias Gaon ben Joseph, Egyptian Rabbi, born in 892, 
died at Sorah in 942, famous for his explanations of the most 
difficult passages in the Bible, of which he wrote an Arabic 
translation, published at Constantinople in 1546. — Trans- 
lator's Note. 

% A Jewish Rabbi settled among the Arabs— Trans- 
lator's NOTF. 



176 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



who flatly declares that the Book of Isaiah from 
chapter xl. to the end does not belong to that 
prophet, how many exegetics among our own 
most celebrated grammarians and lexicographers 
have interpreted Scripture with the freedom of 
unprejudiced minds !' 

Nearly all the opinions upon Hebraical litera- 
ture improperly called rash — since it is in reality 
the hypotheses of theologians which are gratuitous 
and arbitrary — are to be met with among mediaeval 
rabbis. At the time of the Renaissance those 
who see the first glimmer of a rational criticism 
of the Scriptures are again Jews. The recent 
discovery, at Venice, of the writings of Leo de 
Modena,* who was in his time the oracle of 
Judaism, proves that the most advanced ideas 
occurred to him. It would be an exaggeration to 
say that the synagogues favoured this tendency : the 
ghost of the unfortunate Uriel Acostaf would rise 
to protest against such an assertion. But at any 
rate the synagogues did not repress mental 
activity. In the seventeenth century, while men like 
Richard Simon, Louis Cappel, Moise Amyrault,! 

° Famous Rabbi, born at Venice in 1 57 1, died in 1654. 
His most important work is the ' Biblia Hebrasa Rabbinica ' 
(4 vols., Venice, 1610).— Translator's Note. 

f Portuguese nobleman, born at Oporto towards the close 
of the sixteenth century, died in 1647. Was in turn Jewish, 
Sadducean, sceptical, unbeliever, and ended by suicide. 
Owes his reputation to a striking work entitled ' Exemplar 
Vitas Humanae.' — Translator's Note. 

% Richard Simon, French ecclesiastic, wrote the ' Dic- 
tionnaire de la Bible ' (Lyons, 1693, folio). Louis Cappel, 



THE TRANSLATIONS OF THE BIBLE. 177 



isolated, persecuted, saw their attempts at inno- 
vation doomed to failure by the dogmatic intoler- 
ance of their time ; while Bossuet delayed for 
more than a century the progress of exegesis, and 
left to Germany the glory of its foundation ; 
Spinoza, whose posthumous renown as a meta- 
physician has led us to forget that during his life 
he was an exegetic, in his ' Tractatus Theologico- 
Politicus,' elevated into a general method the 
rationalistic interpretation of the books which had 
caused his troubled soul so many struggles. It may 
then be maintained that, down to the second half 
of the eighteenth century, the Jews understood the 
Bible better than the Christians. It is true the 
Jews were not the initiators of the extraordinary 
critical movement which, towards the close of the 
last and the beginning of the present century, en- 
tirely remodelled Hebraic philology. That move- 
ment is connected with two causes : in the first 
place, with the progress of Oriental, and especially 
of Semitic studies, as the Dutch school of Albert 
Schultens understood them ; in the second place, 
with the great scientific freedom which was 
developed in the German universities towards the 
close of the eighteenth century. Germany was 

Protestant theologian, born in 1585 near Sedan, famous by 
his 'Arcanum Punctuationis Revelatum' (Leyden, 1624), 
Mo'ise Amyrault. Protestant theologian, born in Lorraine 
in 1596, known by his treatise ' De la Predestination,' and 
his work entitled ' Traite' des Religions contre ceux qui les 
estiment indifferentes.'— TRANSLATOR'S Note. 

12 



178 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



the first to understand how little honour was 
done to the Scriptures by claiming for them mild 
rules of criticism and a privileged immunity ; she 
thought it unnatural that the first condition of 
sacred criticism should be the abdication of 
ordinary modes of reasoning. Modern exegesis 
is thus, taken altogether, an essentially Protestant 
production. But though the Israelites did not 
found it, they yet had the signal conscientious- 
ness to adopt its general method and its chief 
results. To a learned Israelite, M. Munk, we 
are indebted for the most eloquent defence 
of the rational method,* and the best com- 
pendium published in France before 1848 of 
those doctrines which, when unacquainted with 
their history, people characterize as baseless inno- 
vations.t Nearly all the great theses of inde- 
pendent criticism are proposed therein with perfect 
lucidity and courageous sincerity. It maybe said 
that, since Richard Simon, nothing so truly 
scientific has been published in France on the 
ancient literature of the Hebrews. 

To M. Munk we must add the indefatigable 
M. Cahen,J among the earliest promoters of 
Hebraic studies, so much neglected with us. 
M. Cahen's translation is far from attaining the 

* They are inserted in M. Cahen's Bible, vol. ii., beginning, 
f ' Palestine,' Paris, 1845. 

X This article was written twenty-five years ago. M. 
Reuss's translation, now complete, has infinitely surpassed 
all France possessed then in Biblical exegesis. 



THE TRANSLATIONS OF THE BIBLE. 179 



ideal of a French translation of the Bible ; but 
we must, in justice, confess that ideal to be 
unattainable. M. Cahen's object was, above all, 
to be literal. I am far from depreciating attempts 
of that kind, when they gain in truthfulness 
what they lose in elegance ; yet, it must be 
acknowledged, a model translation is not to be 
sought for in such attempts. It is a mistake to 
suppose that expressions opposed to the genius 
of the language into which the translation is made 
preserve the colour of the original. A language 
ought never to be spoken incorrectly. When we 
have once begun, there is no reason why we should 
stop ; and if, under the pretence of being faithful, 
we make use of idioms which cannot be understood 
without a commentary, why not frankly resort to 
that system by which the translator contents him- 
self with giving word for word, little caring whether 
his translation be as obscure as the original, and 
leaving the reader to discover the sense ? Such 
licence is, I know, admitted in German ; but that 
is one of the facilities I least envy trans-Rhenish 
scholars. The French language is puritan ; 
there is no tampering with it. People are not 
compelled to write it ; but when they do under- 
take that difficult task, they must pass, with 
hands bound, under the Caudine forks of an 
authorized dictionary and a grammar consecrated 
by use. 

I admit that these strict obligations give the 
translator enormous difficulties, especially as re- 

12 — 2 



i8o NEW STUDIES OE RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



gards very ancient works or works created by a 
genius very different from ours. Every transla- 
tion is essentially imperfect, being the result of a 
compromise between two contrary obligations : 
the first being to render as faithfully as possible 
the expressions of the original; the other, to 
remain French. But one of these obligations 
admits no half-measure — it is the second. The 
translator's duty is fulfilled only when he has 
succeeded in rendering the thought of his text 
into a perfectly correct French sentence. If the 
work he is translating be quite remote from our 
habits of mind, that translation must, despite all 
his efforts, offer strange features, images out of 
keeping with our taste, particulars that require 
explanation ; but he is absolutely prohibited from 
breaking the rules of the language. The curious 
phenomenon which has happened in England, 
where translations of the Bible, of very moderate 
merit in every respect, are read by everyone — and 
in Germany, where the almost literal translation of 
the same book from the pen of Luther has become 
classic, could not take place in France. With us 
a translation will never become a classic. Our 
taste is too exclusive to admit any of those 
peculiarities which in old books cannot be 
suppressed without inaccuracy. This is why 
the Bible in the vernacular never had, and does 
not seem likely ever to have, in France the 
success it has met with everywhere else. The 
Middle Ages, from the twelfth century, produced 



THE TRANSLATIONS OF THE BIBLE. 181 



French Bibles fairly good in style,* yet none of 
them were ever accepted. The Protestant trans- 
lations of the sixteenth century, which were so 
efficacious in nourishing the soul, and inspiring a 
religion strong even to heroism, never could obtain 
their literary consecration. The Jansenist versions 
of the seventeenth century are, no doubt, couched 
in admirable language ; but the original colour is 
effaced. They bear neither an Eastern nor an 
ancient stamp ; besides which,' in a philological 
point of view, they leave much to be desired. 

Must we then renounce the hope of ever seeing 
parts of the Bible translated so as to captivate 
the attention of the French public ? I do not 
think so. First of all, if it correctly represented 
the last word of science as regards Biblical 
exegesis, such a translation, besides its literary 
merit, would be of paramount importance for all 
those interested in religious questions. More- 
over, there are passages of ancient Hebraic litera- 
ture which, even in our language, could be made 
very impressive. I feel convinced that the Can- 
ticles, delicately handled, would have infinite 
charm. If translated in a simple and pure style, 
the Psalms would still retain part of their pene- 
trating harmony. I shall shortly try what effect 
may be produced on the public by a French trans- 

* Vide M. Reuss's learned essays upon this subject in 
M. Colain's Revue de Theologie (January and June, 1851 ; 
January and December, 1852 ; January, 1853 ; January, 
February and March, 1857). 



182 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



lation of the Book of Job, which, while preserving 
the original rhythm, will make no concession to 
the idioms of the text. If the effect produced is not 
that of a grand and bold work, bearing the charac- 
teristics of the earliest antiquity, it will be the fault 
of the translator. But all those attempts can only 
result in literary and scientific productions. They 
will never bring forth a book like that which 
Luther gave his country. France cut herself off 
from the possibility of having a great religious 
book in her own tongue on the day when, faithful 
to the Roman tradition, she refused to give up 
Latin, and proclaimed her language not holy 
enough for prayer. One of the most essential 
elements in the nobility of ancient tongues has 
thus been refused to ours ; it has continued 
profane ; it has missed the stamp of the ideal, 
because it has never been made the medium of 
man's appeal to God. 



THE TEAZIEHS OF PERSIA. 



Asia, although an irrevocable sentence of decay 
long since went forth against her, is not, in our 
days, so sterile in a literary point of view as might 
be expected. The literature of Hindostan is, in the 
nineteenth century, at least as fruitful as it ever has 
been. In Syria, and above all at Beyrouth, the 
apparently sapless trunk of Arabic, literature is 
putting forth a vigorous offshoot. Of late years, the 
course of study at Constantinople has been lacking 
in originality, though presenting some curious 
points. But it is Persia which, in spite of her deca- 
dence, offers the most remarkable symptoms of 
literary renaissance. In the first place, Persia is the 
region of Western and Southern Asia which reads 
her classical masterpieces with most taste and 
enthusiasm. Perhaps, also, there is no Asiatic 
country where the ancient spirit of the nation 
is more likely to rise again. Persia, thanks to the 
schism which isolated her in the midst of Islam, 
has preserved the characteristics of her primi- 
tive genius better than the countries swayed by 
that kind of Catholicity which Sunnism, with its 
Khalif Sultan, tried to realize. The wonderful re- 



1 84 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



ligious attempt of the Babis illustrated the power 
of the old mystic and pantheistic leaven which 
the Arab conquest could not eradicate. Sufism 
and dervishism are, in their own way, protests 
against the ruling religion. Lastly, the exaggerated 
sentiments professed by the Chiites towards Ali, by 
providing them with a pretext for anathematizing 
Ali's murderers — that is, the very columns of 
official Islamism — opened to their imagination a 
way of escape from the narrow walls within which 
true Mussulmans willingly confine themselves. 

From this ever-living source whence the Persians 
derive almost all their motives for love or hate — 
from the Chiitish passion, from the singular paradox 
of a patriotism at bay, seeking arguments and in- 
citements in a murder committed nearly thirteen 
hundred years ago and in a retrospective discus- 
sion of a question of succession — sprang the most 
original cluster of compositions which Asia 
has produced in our days. We know that, to 
the Chiites, the tragical deaths of Ali and his 
two sons, Hassan and Hossein, are analogous to 
what Christ's Passion is to Christians. The 
month of Moharram, devoted to those gloomy 
recollections, is, like our Holy Week, full of 
images and scenes of mourning. The traditional 
legend recited on these anniversaries as a dialogue, 
reminds us of the form of service in our churches 
on Palm Sunday. Europeans who have heard 
that recital among the Metuali Chiites of Syria, 
assure me that nothing could be more beautiful or 



THE TEAZIEHS OF PERSIA. 185 



more touching. From such a recitation, by several 
personages, it was but a step to the Mystery, 
as a scenic performance. That step, however, 
has only been taken in our days. It would be rash 
to affirm that in the seventeenth and eighteenth 
centuries Chiitish enthusiasm did not sometimes 
give dramatic representations of incidents relating 
to the Passion of Ali and of his sons. But it was 
not till our days that such representations became 
a species of literature, and grew into regular and 
well-defined compositions. 

I. 

To M. Alexander Chodzko and to M. de Gobi- 
neau we owe the knowledge of these curious 
compositions, the result, as we see, of conditions 
similar to those that gave rise to our mediaeval 
Mysteries. In a volume entitled ' Les Religions 
et les Philosophies de l'Asie Centrale ' (Paris, 
1865), M. de Gobineau faithfully described their 
character, and translated with unusual talent one 
of the most original pieces, ' Kassim's Wedding ' 
(' Les Noces de Cassem'). M. Chodzko bought at 
Teheran a manuscript containing thirty-three 
similar dramas, which has since been purchased 
by the Bibliotheque Nationale. From this plen- 
tiful source M. Chodzko selected five pieces, of 
which he has just published a translation.* 

* ' Theatre Persan, choix de Teazies ou Drames,' translated 
for the first time from the Persian by M. Chodzko, Assistant 
Lecturer to the .College de France (Paris, Ernest Leroux, 
1878, Elzevir size). 



1 86 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



I do not know any more instructive reading. 
This little book will charm all who feel an interest 
in religious manifestations as the most perfect 
image of the genius of different peoples. 

AYe must first of all picture to ourselves the 
stage and the material circumstances attending 
the performance. This sometimes takes place in 
the tekiehs — large porticos built for the purpose ; 
at other times in public places, in caravansaries, 
in the .yards of mosques and palaces. In most 
cases the expenses are borne by some rich man, 
anxious to acquire popularity or to express his 
gratitude to Heaven. It is the most meritorious 
of deeds ; the indulgences it procures are, as the 
Persians say, ' bricks we bake on earth with which 
to build our heavenly palace.' 

According to the season,* large pieces of 
canvas are fixed over the place to protect the 
actors from the weather. The galleries and win- 
dows overlooking the stage are reserved for the 
guests, among whom are always the members of 
the Diplomatic Corps and other distinguished 
foreigners. The Persians do not hesitate to 
admit Christians to their sacred dramas ; it is 
even remarkable that the Europeans (Frengui), 
as opposed to the Turks and to the Arabs, play 
in those dramas a part nearly always favourable to 
Ali. The Chiites rather delight in showing the 

* The Mussulman year being lunar, the month of Mo- 
harram may fall in any season. 



THE TEAZIEHS OF PERSIA. 



187 



Christians nearer to the truth, and above all 
things more compassionate, more humane, than 
the Arabs and the Sunnites. In one of these 
dramas we see the European Ambassador sup- 
porting the Imam's rights to the khalifate ; in 
another, a French lady testifies to an extraordinary 
miracle, intended to disclose some previously un- 
known instance of the wickedness of Ali's murderers. 

The women generally sit in a reserved compart- 
ment, on small stools which they bring with them. 
The rest of the spectators squat in the Persian 
fashion. The sekka (water-sellers), with their 
leathern bags slung across the shoulders and a 
saucer in their hands, are busy offering water to 
the company, in remembrance of the thirst Ali 
and his followers suffered when crossing the 
desert of Kerbela in the heart of summer. This 
is regarded as a good work, and is nearly always 
performed in consequence of a vow. For instance, 
if a child be sickly, his parents will vow to make a 
sekka of him during one or more seasons, in honour 
of Imam Hossein, if he reaches such or such an age. 
These little water-carriers are said to be extremely 
graceful. Richly clad, their eyelashes and eye- 
brows painted deep blue, wearing their hair in 
floating curls, their heads adorned with caps of Kash- 
meer cloth which glitter with pearls and precious 
stones, they move about, offering iced-water and 
sometimes sherbet to the audience. Then there 
are those who let pipes on hire, dealers in pastilles 
made of the earth of the Kerbela desert and per- 



188 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



fumed with musk, and the sellers of cakes and dain- 
ties. The public accommodated in the galleries 
and windows sip black coffee and smoke nar- 
guilehs. The ferrdches, armed with sticks, walk 
gravely about, and keep order. 

The space reserved for the performers is sepa- 
rated from t'he pit by a very frail barrier, the pro- 
tection of which gives the ferrdches a world of 
trouble. That reserved space is in the centre of 
the enclosure, so that the actors are visible from 
all sides. In the middle is a carpeted platform, 
supporting an armchair, upon which is seated the 
rouzekhan, or reciter of the traditions, surrounded by 
half a dozen children as choristers. The function 
of the rouzekhan is to prepare the spectators for 
painful impressions by sermons and legends recited 
in prose, or sung in verse. At a given moment he 
casts his turban to the ground, tears his garments, 
smites his breast, and pulls his beard. Nearly 
everyone imitates him ; they uncover their shaven 
heads, and inflict wounds on them with the points 
of their poniards, the blood streaming down their 
faces. Then the performance, properly speaking, 
begins. There being no scenery and no green- 
room, all the actors are on the stage together. 
Each speaks in turn, and seats himself when he 
has nothing to say. 

The style of these open-air dramas too often 
shows the prolixity and want of vigour which, for 
centuries, have characterized nearly all Eastern 
productions. The language employed is quite 



THE TEAZIEHS OF PERSIA. 189 



commonplace ; it does not go beyond the 
ordinary resources of exuberant facility. What 
astonishes us is the inventive variety displayed 
in all the details. Nowhere else does one see 
so clearly the difference between Arabian and 
Persian genius. Arabia possesses neither drama 
nor epic. Persia always had the epic, and begins 
to possess a drama. The truth is, they are akin. 
iEschylus knew that he was descended from 
Homer; drama and epic proceed from a common 
source — mythology and national spirit. It seems 
strange to speak of mythology in Islam ; but, as 
we have said, Persia is only superficially Mussul- 
man. It was by a kind of heterodox instinct that 
she madly embraced the worship of Ali, as a 
revenge on the Arabs and true Islamism. To 
these ardent imaginations, Ali is no longer a mere 
historical personage ; he is a Vishnu, a Krishna, a 
Christ. His life has become an Indian Purana, 
an apocryphal Gospel. Because of Ali and for 
him God created heaven and earth. From pole 
to pole, the world has no hope of salvation but 
through Ali. Ali is the key to all the enigmas of 
humanity, the Nilometer of heaven and earth, the 
Kibla of the universe, the sole source of all that 
lives, the master of the created world, of mortals 
and of spirits. He it is who illuminates the sun 
and the moon ; he is the giant who supports 
the edifice of religion ; the dispenser of the water 
of Heaven and the fire of Hell. Hassan and 
Hossein are the jewels set in the throne of God ; 



190 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



their names uttered in the abode of the blessed 
cause the seventh heaven to bow with respect. 
Thus, though expelled for a time, nature always 
returns. Vanquished by Islam, Persia has found 
means to re-create for herself a mythology, and at 
the same time to gratify her ill-humour by repre- 
senting the founders of Islamism as impostors, the 
Khalifs as usurpers, and Omar as a vulgar rogue, 
insensible to pity. 

The fecundity of imagination which the authors 
of Persian dramas have placed at the service of 
these ardent passions is truly surprising. The 
Arabian Kasida, without narrative or stage display, 
is like a long arabesque, artistically wrought, cold, 
and unimpressive. But here, all is romance. 
Shakespeare himself would have witnessed these 
mysteries with pleasure ; he would have recognised 
his kindred by that deep, impressive thrill which 
pervades the whole frame and strangely excites the 
nerves. M. de Gobineau has skilfully analyzed 
one of the most peculiar of these religious dramas, 
entitled ' The Christian Lady.' The piece seems 
to have been composed subsequently to M. 
Chodzko's journey, or rather it is a skilful adapta- 
tion of the ' Monastery of European Monks,' which 
is contained in the manuscript in the ' Bibliotheque 
Nationale.' The prologue is unequalled for bold- 
ness. A European lady, crossing, by accident, 
the plains of Kerbela, orders her tent to be 
pitched. The first stake is driven into the ground; 
a long jet of blood spurts forth from the earth, 



THE TEAZIEHS OF PERSIA. 191 



real red blood, besmearing everything around, and 
sending a thrill of horror through all who are 
present. A second stake is driven in ; blood spurts 
forth again ; a third, blood spurts forth every- 
where. The European lady flees, in horror, from 
the spot, and falls asleep. Christ, her prophet, 
appears to her in a dream, tells her where she is, 
relates the whole story of Kerbela, and, for the 
first time, divulges to her a monstrous crime com- 
mitted by a Bedouin, which even surpasses the 
limits of Arabian wickedness as conceived by 
Persians. 

The five dramas published by M. Chodzko form 
a kind of chronological series, extending from the 
last days of Mahomet to the assassination of Ali 
and the death of his sons. The great defect of 
the historical Mahomet is his extreme im- 
passiveness. The legendary Mahomet of the 
Chutes is melancholy and tearful. There is great 
skill in the scene where an Arab, with the base 
and vindictive spirit of his race, insists that, by 
the law of retaliation, the dying prophet shall re- 
ceive a lash from a whip on his naked shoulders. 
The forebodings which fill the last days of 
Mahomet, the visions which embitter the close of 
his life by revealing to him that the Arabs will kill 
all the saints of his family, are very artistic. The 
drama entitled ' Fatima's Garden ' is exceedingly 
touching. The prophet has just died ; all good 
Mussulmans are in mourning. Ali secludes him- 
self in prayer. His rivals take advantage of the 



192 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



situation to carry on intrigues. Through an ex- 
cess of modesty and delicacy Ali misses his 
election to the Khalifate. Omar's brutality then 
breaks out. ' The reason of the people,' he says, 
- is in their eyes.' Aboubekr's Khalifate will be 
secure only when Fatima shall have been driven 
away from her father's garden, where she spends 
her days in tears. Omar undertakes that feat ; he 
forces the door open, and strikes Fatima, who 
miscarries. Ali's life is only spared by the inter- 
vention of foreigners and Christians, who go to 
Aboubekr and beseech him to put an end to 
Omar's barbarity. 

There is genuine pathos in the martyrdom of 
Ali. The distress of the little Kulsoum, Ali's 
daughter, is natural and true. ' Hast thou then for- 
gotten thy poor Kulsoum, father dear ? To whom 
wilt thou leave me ? If sometimes I want to kiss 
thee, to see thee, where shall I find thee ? Who 
will console me for thy absence ? Do not leave 
me here alone. Entrust me to some one as good 
and kind as thyself.' Ali's mystical serenity, his 
parting with Gamber, his servant, are really fine. 

' AH. — Be calm, be patient, my poor Gam- 
ber. Do not give thyself up to despair. When 
I am gone, thou wilt wait upon Hassan and Hos- 
sein, in order to deserve eternal salvation, beside 
the Master of all. Do not distress thyself, friend ; 
after me my two sons will secure thy welfare on 
earth and in heaven. 

'Gamber. — Body of the prophet, star of the 



THE TEAZIEHS OF PERSIA. 



193 



seventh heaven, soul of God's abode, rose of the 
garden of religion, and friend of Allah, ah ! what 
glorious days were those when, riding Duldul,* 
thou usedst to dazzle the eyes of our enemies by the 
sun of victory which glittered on the gold of thy 
stirrup. I followed thee everywhere, proud of 
my master's grandeur ; and Gamber, little atom, 
bathed himself in the streams of light of thy glory. 
Henceforth, how can I look upon Zulfekar,t oh 
my King ? With what eyes shall I behold 
Duldul ? Speak, oh ! speak, master ! At the 
sight of thy sword and of thy horse, like myself, 
bereaved of their master, what can Gamber do but 
rend his beard and his garments ? 

' Ali. — Duldul will forget me no more than thou, 
old friend. Forgive me all the pain thou hast 
endured so many long years. Approach, Hassein 
and Hossein ! I confide Gamber to your care ; 
he has always served me with devotion and 
loyalty ; he has had all my confidence. Take care 
of him, children, and, by your kindness, make him 
forget that I no longer live. 

' Gamber. — I have a wish, a prayer, to address 
to thee, my prince. Before thou departest from 
this land of anguish, I would see thee once more 
on Duldul ; mount him, oh my sovereign, and let 
me once more walk by the side of thy stirrup ; 
let me gather the dust from the shoes of the noble 

* The name of Ali's horse, 
t The name of Ali's sword. 

13 



194 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



animal. I shall rub my eyes with it, it is a price- 
less eye-salve. 

( Ali. — I am no longer allowed to ride Duldul. 
Death has already saddled his steed for me. I 
shall mount him soon, and ride across other fields. 
Go, Gamber, my brave equerry, throw a black 
shroud over my favourite horse ; tell him he no 
longer has a master ; the cruelty of fate snatches 
him away. . . . 

' Gamber (goes out and comes back, leading the 
favourite horse). — Come, Duldul, let me veil thee in 
black trappings. The miscreants, the infamous bar- 
barians, have martyred our master. Thou art sad ; 
thou knowest, my friend Duldul, that thy rider, thy 
prince, is expiring in his own blood. Do not re- 
sist, let me dress thee in mourning. Let me 
cover my head with the dust thou treadest, and 
then expire at thy feet. Let me press to my lips 
that saddle, those stirrups. Ali was all my joy, 
all my wealth.' 

II. 

The most striking of the dramas published by M. 
Chodzko is certainly that entitled ' The Monastery 
of European Monks.'* The chief personage is the 
head of the Imam Hossein. Yezid's army has 
retreated, carrying with it the heads of the mar- 
tyrs. An alarm suddenly breaks out ; a troop of 
Ali's partisans comes up to recover the heads. 

c ' European,' ' Frengui,' is here synonymous with ' Chris- 
tian.' 



THE TEAZIEHS OF PERSIA. 



195 



Being close to a Christian convent, the Arabs 
seek refuge there for the night. 

' Chemr. — Inmates of the Christian monastery, 
you who obey the laws of Jesus, can you receive 
us for one night within your walls ? We will enter 
as true friends. 

' The Prior. — Who art thou, and whence comest 
thou with that army ? Explain thy secret inten- 
tions. What seekest thou amongst monks, chief 
of the warriors ? If thou art looking for one of 
ourselves, declare his name. 

' Chemr. — The army thou seest, composed of 
white men and of negroes, marches under the 
banner of the Khalif Yediz. An Arab having had 
the ambition to become Khalif, our sovereign 
directed us to let him know what he thought of it. 
He sent me with the whole of his army, and the 
edge of my dagger did the rest. Know that, 
through my valour, the pretender, a few days ago, 
was made to bite the dust. As for his head, we 
are taking it to Damascus as a present for the 
Khalif. All the members of his family fell into 
our hands. They are here, loaded with chains, 
and we return to Damascus vigorous and full of 
joy. Overtaken by night in your oasis, we beg 
for hospitality under the roof of your monastery. 
Do not refuse shelter to our soldiers, exhausted by 
a long march. 

' The Prior. — Our monastery is not large enough 
to accommodate all that crowd. The army 

13—2 



196 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



should set up its camp outside the boundaries of 
the convent. You may entrust your prisoners 
to us ; we will take care of them. Let us also 
have those heads, radiant with aureoles. The 
sight of them fills my heart with affection. 

' Chemr. — As thou wilt. Take the heads, brave 
monk ; they are those of the rebels of the Prophet 
Mahomet's family. Guard well the skulls of those 
usurpers ; but take especial care of that of the so- 
called chief of their religion. 

1 The Prior (taking the head of Imam Hossein 
from a spear). — Good God ! that head looks to 
me like some newly-opened tulip ! The eyes of 
this earthly globe would grow blood-red with 
weeping over it. Almighty Lord ! whence comes 
that head besmeared with clotted blood ? To 
what zodiac does that star belong ? From what 
shell came that royal pearl ? 

' The Head of Imam Hossein (speaks in Arabic) — 
Do not think that God takes .no heed of the 
injustices committed by the wicked (Coran, xiv. 
43)- 

6 The Prior. — Almighty Lord ! Have I heard 
aright ? Whence comes that voice that stirs my 
inmost soul ? Its melodious tones vibrate through 
heaven and earth. It has entered the ear of 
my mind. Is it a dream ? But I am awake . . . 
What is it, then ? Can it be the angel Asrafil, 
sounding the trumpet of the day of resurrection ? 

'The Head (recites). — Those who practise 
iniquity will some day see what fearful fate 



THE TEAZIEHS OF PERSIA. 



197 



their conduct will bring upon them (Coran, xxvi. 
228). 

' The Prior. — Brother monks, come hither ! 
Tell me, did you hear that voice ? Tell me, for 
the love of God, whence comes that plaintive 
melody ? It absorbs my senses, and the calm- 
ness of my heart abandons me. Those wailings 
seem to come from heaven. 

'A Monk. — Be convinced, worthy Prior, that 
those sighs and groans are uttered by the mouth 
of that severed head. The lips move as they 
repeat the verses of the Pentateuch ; they explain 
to us the mysterious meaning of the Gospel . . . 
But no ; when I listen more attentively, how 
marvellous ! the movements of that tongue, won- 
derfully eloquent, are piously repeating the verses 
of two chapters of the Coran. 

' The Prior. — In heaven's name, oh Head ! an- 
swer me ! To what soul of man didst thou 
belong ? Faded rose, from what garden hast 
thou been plucked ? The light of eternal sal- 
vation shines on thy cheeks. Tell me, Head ! 
at the banquet of what monarch art thou the 
light ? Ah ! if Jesus Christ had left us a successor 
like thee in this world ! . . . Soul of the Universe, 
who art thou ? Bleeding skull, answer my ques- 
tions ; thou knowest all things. From the midst 
of the garden of faith call by its name the bird of 
my spirit. Canst thou be Moses, or the miracu- 
lous breath of Jesus ? Open thy mouth whence 
marvels flow ; explain to me this prodigy. 



198 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



' The Head. — I am the martyr of Kerbela ; my 
name is Hossein; my work is to destroy the ene- 
mies of God. A newly-blown rose in the flower- 
bed of true religion, my grandfather was Ma- 
homet, Ali was my father, and the best of women 
brought me to life. My birth-place was the city 
of Medina ; my resting-place is in the sands of 
the desert of Kerbela. 

' The Prior. — Fruit of the tree of Fatima's 
orchard ! Beautiful cypress, which Fatima's 
motherly hands delighted in caressing ! Oh ! 
cursed for ever be he who severed thee from thy 
body, thou who causedst Fatima's tearful eyes 
to shine with joy ! Hear me, monks ! Hasten 
to bring musk and phials of rose-water. It is a 
meritorious deed to perfume those heads ; I will 
embalm them all, especially that of Fatima's be- 
loved. Spread amber and perfumes, and strew 
flowers over the tresses and the brows of Ma- 
homet's family. 

' A Monk. — Prior, receive from our hands the 
musk and rose-water. It is our duty to adore 
these heads. To-morrow they will intercede with 
God on our behalf, plunged as we are to the neck 
in the slough of sin. 

' The Prior. — Would I could fall a victim for 
each of the locks of thy hair, Imam Hossein, 
jnartyr of the path of God ! Oh, would I were 
the ransom of thy tortured soul ! Thanks to the 
light which beams from thy head, elect of two 
worlds ! our cell has become an object of envy 



THE TEAZIEHS OF PERSIA. 199 

to celestial palaces. Where art thou, Fatima ? 
Come and dress the hair of thy beloved son ; 
cleanse his locks with thy tears ! Where is thy 
illustrious grandfather — the messenger of God ? 
Where is thy glorious lord, Ali, the prince of 
men ? 

' Enter a Hatef or Public-crier. 

' The Hatef. — Heed carefully the scenes of afflic- 
tion about to be unrolled before your eyes. Here 
is the spirit of the first man created by God : he 
comes to this monastery to pay a visit of condo- 
lence to the Head of Imam Hossein. Prophet 
Adam is here with tearful eyes. 

* Adam. — Martyr of Kerbela, joy of Mahomet's 
eyes ! why is thy radiant head separated from thy 
body ? Hail to thee, glory of both worlds, mar- 
tyred on the road to God ! Glorious Imam, 
accept Adam's homage, who would be proud to 
suffer as thy substitute. Resplendent head, thou 
shalt henceforth shine in the midst of eternal bliss. 
Thanks to thy martyrdom, soul elect of God I 
thou wilt appear before His throne, radiant with 
purity. 

' The Hatef. — Now arrives Abraham, the friend 
of God. He comes here, weeping, to pay his visit 
of condolence. He utters sighs and groans. 
Hasten to meet the friend of God, and to do 
him honour ; he comes from above, and with sobs 
offers to the glorious deceased the tribute of his 
grief. 



2oo NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



' Abraham. — I, the friend of God, have come to 
see the head of Imam Hossein. I who built the 
sanctuary of Caaba, and laid in it that stone,* 
towards which, night and day, are turned all the 
looks, all the hopes of true believers, I hail thee, 
pride of two worlds, victim of crime ! Hail to 
thee, joy of the maternal heart of the best of 
women. Abraham would indeed think it bliss to 
serve as a ransom for thee, radiant head — to die 
for thee, blood-stained trunk. 

' The Hatcf. — Fall back, monks ! give place to 
Jesus, who has come to mourn over the illustrious 
offspring of the line of prophets. He has come 
to pay his visit of condolence to the prince of 
the universe. Here he is, Mary's child, who, from 
the top of the seventh heaven, comes down with 
Moses. 

'Jesus. — I am Jesus, the Spirit of God, my eyes 
swollen with tears. I come here to fulfil the 
duties owing to the Head of Hossein. Rose of 
Ali's flower-garden, light of his eyes, I hail thee ! 
Victim of barbarous men, fallen on the desert of 
misfortune, receive my homage ! Oh that all 
the good works for which Jesus, persecuted like 
thee, has found merit in the eyes of God, might 
serve as thy ransom, noble head ! Would I were 

* In Arabic, the Keblah, a famous black stone said by 
Mussulmans to have been presented by the angel Gabriel 
to Abraham, on the occasion of his building the original 
Caaba, which is said to be still extant, and composed of an 
oblong stone building within the great Mosque at Mecca. — 
Translator's Note. 



THE TEAZIEHS OF PERSIA. 



201 



sacrificed to thy brow surrounded by a halo, to 
thy immaculate forehead ! What faithless traitor 
committed that unheard-of sacrilege ? How did 
they dare to lay hands on that guiltless head I 
Draw near, Orator of God,* approach, behold 
the features of the King of Piety ! This blessed 
existence, this ray of light which emanated from 
the eyes of the mercy of the two worlds, has been 
extinguished ! 

' Moses. — Hail to thee, Hossein's blood-stained 
skull ! What fiend has defiled himself with such 
a crime ? A thousand maledictions on the im- 
pious one who laid low the palm-like grace of 
thy princely stature, oh Hossein !' 

The scene reaches the height of pathos when, 
to salute the martyr, his father Ali, his grand- 
father Mahomet, and his brother Hassan appear 
successively. Then takes place a procession of 
celebrated women. 

' The Hatef. — Stand aside ! The Mother of 
Mankind approaches. Her eyes full of tears, 
Eve visits the grandson of our Prophet. Adam's 
illustrious companion, full of grief, comes to see 
the Head of Hossein disfigured with thirst. 

'Eve. — I salute thee, Head of Hossein, bathed 
in blood. That swan-like neck, the favourite 
resting-place for the Prophet's brow, has been 
severed by the hatred of barbarians. What mur- 
Moses' name among the Mussulmans. 



202 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



derer raised a sacrilegious hand against that head 
crowned with an aureole ? Tell me. Where are 
thy sisters Zeineb and Kulsoum ? Why do I not 
see here thy mournful orphans ? One word of 
thine would thrill my heart with joy. 

' The Hatcf. — Make room ! The mother of Isaac, 
the victim of God, draws near, with tearful eyes ; 
here is the noble Agar,* spouse of Abraham, the 
friend of God. She comes to weep over the Head 
of Hossein, king of men and demons. t See how 
much she suffers, what sighs and lamentations 
swell her bosom ! 

' Agar. — I am Agar, the prey to the deepest 
grief ; my eyes weep tears of blood. Separated 
from thee, martyr, Agar must give herself up to 
groans and lamentations. I hail thee, light of 
Fatima's eyes ! noble head of the edifice which 
sheltered mortals. Since thy death the abode 
of angels and demons has become a house of 
mourning. 

' The Hatef. — The Mother of Rachel has come 
to wail over the Head of Hossein, the Imam of 
the century. She strikes her breast with her 
clenched hands, tears her hair, and bursts into 
tears — all this she does to honour the obsequies of 
the chief of martyrs. 

* There is here a confusion between Ishmael and Isaac. 

f The word ' demon ' is here taken in its original Greek 
acceptation — Sai/iwv, a spirit similar to those termed angels in 
the Scriptures, and therefore not necessarily evil. — Trans- 
lator's Note. 



THE TEAZIEHS OF PERSIA. 



' Rachel. — I, Joseph's mother, bring here a heart 
broken with sorrow because of the sad end of 
Hossein, the prince of the century. I hail thee, 
Head of Hossein, steeped in blood. My son 
Joseph is thy faithful servant. I would sacrifice 
my life to reanimate thy face, pale as the moon ! 
Accursed for ever be the murderer who insulted 
thy mortal remains, Hossein ! 

' The Hatef. — This woman who approaches with 
moans and sadness is Jethro's daughter. The 
grief she feels has made her soul resemble a cloak 
torn to shreds. She strikes her head with both 
hands, and sobs at the sight of Hossein's severed 
head. 

' Jethro's Daughter. — I would a thousand times 
have sacrificed my soul to thee, oh Hossein, light 
of the eyes of the world ! I am Jethro's daugh- 
ter. Homage to thy radiant head, oh Imam 
Hossein ! to that head whose splendour cannot 
be dimmed even by the blood that bathes it ! 
All the cherubs of heaven grieve like me. I have 
not strength to gaze longer on thy severed head. 
For one look from thee I would myself be slain. 

' The Hatef. — I see the Mother of Jesus ap- 
proaching. She is distressed, she sighs, she 
covers with ashes her floating hair. The nearer 
she comes to the Head of Hossein the more 
fertile are her lips in ejaculation, her eyes in 
tears. She is anxious to honour fitly the demise 
of Ali's descendant. 

' Mary. — I, Mary, full of grief, distressed and 



204 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



distracted, cover myself with ashes because of 
thee. Oh, would to God Mary had been sacri- 
ficed instead of that beloved head ! Would to 
God the whole earth had given way rather than 
become the scene of so atrocious a crime ! Poor 
Fatima ! when she learns what has happened to 
the light of her eyes, when she sees that her 
Hossein has been massacred by vile soldiers, 
poor mother ! her shrieks will bring down the last 
judgment on this earth. Accept my homage, light 
of the eyeballs of Fatima ! Oh seventh heaven, 
hear my cries, my maledictions ! Oh God ! blind 
Mary's eyes, spare her the sight of the mutilated 
corpse of the most beloved of Imams ! 

' The Hatef. — Now comes the mother of Moses, 
to look at the Head of the chief of men and of 
genii. She approaches Hossein's Head, smiting 
her brow and her bosom. 

' Moses" Mother. — Head, fallen under the enemy's 
sword, receive my homage. Tell me, who severed 
thee from thy beautiful body ? Who is the infa- 
mous traitor that is guilty of this crime ? Hail to 
thee, decapitated corpse, abandoned to the wolves 
of the desert ! May God allow this spectacle to 
blind me, that I may never again behold in such a 
state the relics of the jewel of the universe !' 

The emotion reaches its climax when Hadija, 
Hossein's grandmother, and his mother Fatima, 
make their entrance. The Prior of the Convent, 
converted by so many miracles, becomes a Cliiite. 



THE TEAZIEHS OF PERSIA. 



205 



■ The Prior. — Hossein, remembrance left to 
mortals by the gallant Ali, my brain, burns with 
the love thou hast inspired. Grant my humble 
request, martyr fallen under the steel of the im- 
pious. I desire thee to convert me to thy creed. 
Oh Hossein ! I renounce the stole of the Christian 
priest. 

' The Head. — Recite after me the profession of 
faith of Islam ; say : 

' " I confess that there is no other God than 
Allah, and that Mahomet is the messenger 
of Allah, and that Ali is the friend of Allah." 
' The Prior. — Oh t God ! on the day of the last 
judgment, remember the words I pronounce : 
' " I confess there is no other God than 
Allah." ' 

Thus the mystic genius of Persia has given 
Islamism that in which it was wanting : an ideal 
■of tenderness and suffering, themes over which to 
weep, lamentations, a Passion. This is an abso- 
lute necessity in all religions. From the Adonia* 
to the Holy Week, every creed has had scenes and 
litanies which occasion tears. It is so sweet to 
weep over a redeeming God, over a victim who 
offers himself for the salvation of the faithful ; to 
raise the planctus natures, 1 in the midst of that 
den of iniquities we call the world.' This senti- 

* Called thus from Adonis ; they consisted in mournful 
religious celebrations in honour of the death of Adonis. — 
Translator's Note. 



2o6 XEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



ment is almost foreign to Arabian Islamism, a 
purely virile religion, meant solely for men. In 
the legend of Jesus, according to the Mussulman 
Sunnites, Jesus does not suffer; he is not crucified. 
Nor is there anything in Mahomet's life, as written 
by the orthodox, to inspire sentiments of tender- 
ness and pity. The Chutes created the virtue of 
resignation in the persons of Ali and his sons, 
without direct imitation of the Christian Passion, 
though based upon the same sentiments. Expia- 
tion, of which Sunnism bears no trace, is at the 
root of Chiism. The old Persian fate — the true 
God of Iran — we meet again in these dramas, with 
the same sad dignity as in the Shah-nameh. Ali 
suffers because it is the will of fate, and also for 
his Chiitish people, that the merit of his sufferings 
may be placed to their credit. Height of heroism ! 
To make the sacrifice efficacious the victim must 
accept his martyrdom. A fine scene in the drama 
entitled ' The Messenger of God ' is that in which 
Mahomet obtains the consent of Ali and Fatima 
to their sons' death : 

'Fatima. — Good God! must they, my two sons, 
renounce life and become martyrs ? What have 
they done to deserve that punishment, as fearful as 
it is disgraceful ? Thou hast ever acted towards 
thy people as a sovereign full of solicitude for 
their welfare. Are they ungrateful and criminal 
enough to dare to raise their hands against the 
princes of thy family ? 



THE TEAZIEHS OF PERSIA. 



207 



' The Prophet. — The martyrdom of my offspring 
does not proceed from any fault of theirs. They 
would all live, if life were the reward of merit. 
But their martyrdom alone can ensure the salva- 
tion of my followers and testify in their favour on 
the day of resurrection. God Himself has decreed 
it. Thy husband and I have already acquiesced 
in the Divine will ; conform thyself to it in thy 
turn, my daughter ; ensure the eternal happiness 
of my people! Give thy consent and thou shalt 
become the dawn of their blessed eternity; thy 
assent will shield them against the onslaughts of 
evil. God requires that this covenant shall bear 
thy seal. On a word of thine depends the salva- 
tion of millions of believers. 

' Fatima. — Since true believers must be saved 
at the price of my misfortune, I consent to be the 
most unfortunate of mothers ; I consent that this 
calamity shall take its course !' 

These passages always produce transports of 
indignation in the crowd. And when Omar ex- 
claims : * Bewail no more, Ali ! Recite the 
prayers of the dying, and kneel down, that at a 
blow I may cut off thy head,' loud sobs are heard. 
The women who take part in the performance help 
in a great measure to give it its character. In con- 
trast to the Sunnites, whose women have scarcely 
any religion, feminine piety is very strong among 
the Chiites. Nearly all the Teaziehs contain a few 
well-turned compliments addressed to the female 
assistants. 



2o8 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



' H ossein. — Mother, what wilt thou give to those 
women who will honour the remembrance of my 
tragical death ? For, in the supreme moment of 
resurrection, when lifting their heads from the 
tomb, they all, as to-day, will hope to see me. 

' Fat i ma. — Reassure thyself, light of my eyes! 
I swear to thee, by the unrivalled splendour of 
God, that when they reach the gates of Paradise, 
standing with uncovered heads, their eyes in tears, 
their hearts on fire, as they were when celebrat- 
ing thy funeral rites here below, they will find 
me there. I shall call to me only those who 
wept for thee. Having led them into the gar- 
dens of eternal delight, I shall myself install them 
there.' 

And elsewhere : 

' Fatima. — Distress not thyself, oh joy of my 
eyes ! Truly, as God is glorious and unequalled 
in His essence, I shall have, in the abode of the 
blessed, no other friends but those women who have 
assisted in celebrating the mysteries in thy honour. 
I shall wait for them at the gates of Paradise, and 
lead them to my palace. They need but come as 
they appeared on the anniversary of thy martyr- 
dom, their heads uncovered, their eyes full of 
tears, and their hearts on fire.' 

None of our mediaeval Mysteries is, in my 
opinion, written with such breadth and passion. 
Hatred is wanting in our Mysteries. Christianity 



THE TEAZIEHS OF PERSIA. 



209 



is uncontested. Odious personages, such as 
Herod, the Jews, the Pagans, move in such an 
obscure and distant background, that indignation 
is blunted before it reaches them. But in Persia, 
the rage against the Arabs and the Sunnites gene- 
rally never slumbers. An appeal to it will always 
command success. It is necessary to read M. 
Chodzko's volume in its entirety, if we would under- 
stand the originality and the power of this new kind 
of literature, born, so to speak, before our eyes. 
Popular spirit alone can produce a living work. 
It appears that Persians who are acquainted with 
Europe express surprise at the interest we take in 
the Teaziehs. ' What !' they say, ' you, who have 
such a fine theatre, what can you find in these 
productions of an art which is still in its infancy?' 
It is because sincerity is everything in literature. 
The most imperfect expression of deep feeling is 
superior to the cleverest artifices meant to amuse 
a worn-out public. 



14 



JOACHIM DI FLOR AND THE 
ETERNAL GOSPEL. 



[The researches which form the greatest part of this work 
were made in 1852, at the request of the venerable Dean of 
the ' Faculty des Lettres ' of Paris, M. Victor le Clerc. 
Having to speak of the ' Eternal Gospel ' in tome xxiv. of 
the ' Histoire litteraire de la France,' M. le Clerc was 
anxious to know what the Manuscript Department of the 
Bibliotheque Nationale, with which I was then connected, 
contained respecting that obscure question. Some time 
before his death, my learned master returned me the Study 
which I had made for him, and authorized me to publish it. 
I added to it some generalities intended to enable cultured 
readers to grasp the subject, and the whole work appeared 
in the Revue des Deux Mo?ides (isc July, 1866). In 1861, M. 
Xavier Rousselot had published an essay entitled ' Histoire de 
l'Evangile eternel,' which was not without merit, but scarcely 
approached questions of criticism. In 1867, there appeared 
a so-called second edition, under *the title of 'Etude d'His- 
toire religieuse aux XII e et XIII e Siecles ; Joachim de 
Flore, Jean de Parme, et la Doctrine de l'Evangile dternel.' 
In the preface, the author declares that, having read my 
work, he found nothing in it to modify his first opinions. 
M. Paul Meyer pointed out {Revue Critique, 25th April, 1868) 
that, had such modifications been produced in the minds of 
the honourable professor, he would have found it difficult to 
give them expression, since what he calls a second edition is 
but the issue of 1861 with a new title. M. J. A. Schneider's 
pamphlet, 'Joachim von Floris und die Apokalyptiker des 



JOACHIM DI FLOR. 



211 



Mittelalters ' (Dillingen, 1872), has little original value. In 
1874, in the ' Mdmoires' of the Academy of Munich (vol. xii., 
part 3), M. Preger published a paper entitled ' Das Evan- 
gelium seternum und Joachim von Floris.' M. Preger was 
unacquainted with my work published in 1866. Had he 
read it he would, I believe, have avoided some errors, and 
not have adopted the paradoxical thesis that all the writings 
which bear Joachim's name were, without exception, fabrica- 
tions of the sectaries of the middle of the thirteenth century. 
In his pamphlet, " Delia Vita, e delle opere dell' Abbate 
Gioachino' (Milan, 1872), Dom Bernardo Antonio de Riso, 
a monk of Monte Casino, now Bishop of Catanzaro, adopts 
my conclusions. In the third volume of his work entitled 
' Die Bettelorden und die Universitat Paris in der 1 Halite 
des 13 Jahrhunderts,' the Rev. Father Denifle will treat of 
the question in all its developments. I decided on publish- 
ing the present work only after I had ascertained that some 
years will elapse before the researches of this learned eccle- 
siastic are made public] 

The fundamental idea of Christianity at its birth 
was faith in the coming inauguration of the king- 
dom of God, which would renew the world and 
establish in it the everlasting felicity of saints. 
On several occasions, Jesus declared that His 
hearers would not taste of death before having 
witnessed His second advent ; all the first gener- 
ation of Christians believed that at any moment 
they might behold in the sky the great sign, which 
was to foretell the advent of the Son of Man. 
The author of the Apocalypse, bolder still, calcu- 
lated the days. When, as the world still went on, 
complaisant explanations smoothed away these 
too precise prophecies, the boundless hopes which 
lay at the heart of the new religion did not perish. 

14—2 



212 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



An uninterrupted line of enthusiasts, in one sen se 
very sincere disciples of Jesus, was continued from 
century to century, and continued to announce the 
approaching fulfilment of the promise. This grand 
instinct of the future has been the strength of Chris- 
tianity, the secret of its ever-renewed youth. What 
are the congregations of the Latter-day Saints (who 
find recruits in England and in the United States 
even now) but in their own way the remnants of 
the old spirit, the direct fruit of the Apocalypse, 
a party of belated millenarians cherishing in this 
nineteenth century the hopes which consoled the 
first believers ? 

Of all the Utopias born of those aspirations 
towards a new state of mankind, intended to 
realize what before was only image and prophecy, 
the most original was incontestably the attempt 
of the religious and monastic sect which in the 
thirteenth century pretended to reform the 
church and the world, and boldly inscribed on its 
banner, The Eternal Gospel. The failure of that 
attempt, the severities it aroused, destroyed the 
monuments by which we might have known it 
best. Minute inquiries are necessary to recover 
any trace of those bold innovations, and in the 
following essay we shall often have to adopt the 
methods usually admitted in learned rather than 
in popular publications. But the fact which we 
are now investigating is, perhaps, the most extra- 
ordinary in the most important period of the 
Middle Ages ; nothing should appear puerile or 



JOACHIM DI FLOR. 



213 



over-minute when the object in view is to revive 
the memory of those who loved humanity and 
suffered in the hope of serving it. 

I. 

JOACHIM DI FLOR. 

A half legendary name shines brightly at the 
head of the doctrine of the Eternal Gospel. 
Towards the end of the twelfth century, and 
during the early part of the thirteenth, there 
lived in Calabria a holy Abbot of the Cistercian 
order, whose name was Joachim.* Placed on the 
borders of the Greek and the Latin Churches, 
he discerned with rare foresight the general state 
of Christendom. All the Latin world acknowledged 
him as a prophet ; a new order, that of Flor, took 
its name from the place, in the neighbourhood of 
Cosenza, to which he retired. 

The narrow and mistrustful scholastic theology, 
under which all germs of good then existing 
were soon to wither, was not yet all-powerful. 
Joachim's doctrine was not attacked during his 
lifetime. He was honoured by Popes Lucius III. 
and Clement III. It was generally admitted that 
he had received supernatural light and special 
assistance in explaining the oracles contained in 
the Scriptures. 

Gifted with an ardent imagination, the Cala- 

See his Life in the 'Bollandists,' 'Acta SS. Maii,' vol. vii., 
p. 93 ct seq. 



214 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



brian enthusiast, in his frequent intercourse with 
the Greek Church, the faithful guardian of ancient 
discipline, and perhaps also with some branch of 
the Catharist Church, conceived a deep aversion 
to the organization of the Latin Church, the 
intrusion of feudalism into sacred things, and the 
corrupt and worldly manners of the simoniacal 
magnates of the Church. He already possessed in 
its entirety the idea which three centuries later was 
to bring about a religious revolution — I mean the 
profound difference between the mediaeval and 
the primitive Church. The Bible, and above all 
the prophetic books, which were his favourite read- 
ing, unveiled to him an historical philosophy 
which without hesitation he applied to the 
present, and according to which he even pre- 
tended to regulate the future. The destinies of 
the Catholic Church, such as it had become in the 
course of centuries, appeared to him to be on their 
decline. The Greek Church, he sometimes said, 
is Sodom ; the Latin Church, Gomorrah.* He 
seemed to think Christ's doctrine was not final, 
and that the reign of the Holy Spirit obscurely 
promised in the Gospel had not yet come. 

Such thoughts occurred spontaneously, in divers 
countries, to minds alive to the troubles of the 
time. The valiant heretics, disciples of Amauri 
de Bene, burnt at Champeaux, in December, 

° Epistle ' Loquens Dominus Ezechieli,' No. 58 of St. 
Germain, last leaf, back. 



JO A CHIM DI FL OR. 215 

12 10, professed exactly the same ideas,* and 
there is absolutely nothing to lead us to suppose 
that they were acquainted with Joachim's doc- 
trines. 

Joachim seems to have already dreamt that 
poverty might be a remedy for the corruption of 
the period. He is said to have predicted the 
appearance of an order of spiritual men, which 
would rule from sea to sea and enjoy the vision 
of the Father; but Joachim only foresaw what, 
twenty years later, was to be realized by Francis 
of Assisi. His order of Flor never acquired a 
great importance, and after his death the grave 
doubts which were entertained of his orthodoxy 
prevented a belief in his holiness from prevailing 
beyond Calabria. The image of this strange 
monk, surrounded with a halo of mystery, re- 
mained, however, deeply imprinted on the memory 
of his contemporaries. Legend promptly claimed 
him. Innumerable miracles were ascribed to him ; 
he was reported to have prophesied revolutions in 
the Church and in empires. Henceforth imagi- 
nation knew no bounds. Dante formally awarded 
him a prophet's brevet. f The numerous manu- 
scripts containing the predictions attributed to 
Joachim constitute even now a curious spectacle. 
One sees that they have been read with faith and 
anxiety. The margins are laden with notes : 

Vide M. Haureau's memoir in the Revue Archeologique, 
December, 1864 ; Fleury, book Ixxvi., No. 59. 
f ' Paradiso/ xii. 140, 141. 



2i6 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



Nota, nota, nota ! Nota bene ! Nota mirabilem pro- 
phetiam ! At the bottom of the pages are figures 
and calculations; the anxious readers endeavoured 
to endure their terrors, and to ascertain if the 
important events announced by the book were 
soon to take place.* 

Joachim is generally pointed out as the author of 
1 The Eternal Gospel.' The Middle Ages, from the 
middle of the thirteenth century, believed, and 
modern critics have generally admitted, that 
the ' Eternal Gospel ' was the title of a secret 
book, whose doctrine it was wickedly sought to 
substitute for that of Christ's Gospel. But 
doubts arise on this point, when we see that 
most contemporary authors only speak of such a 
book by hearsay, and without ever quoting it 
textually — when, besides, there are flagrant contra- 
dictions in their testimony as to the nature and 
origin of the book. When we see that undis- 
coverable volume made the aliment of and pretext 
for the passions and interests which in the 
thirteenth century divided the world, we are 
tempted to place it in the same category with the 
book of the 'Three Impostors,' which certainly 
never existed,+ looking upon it as one of those 
chimeras invented by calumny, and always kept 
in reserve against those whose ruin is desired. 

° Vide, for instance, the manuscript No. 427 of the old 
Latin collection. 

f See my essay on ' Averroes et Averroism,' p. 292 et 
seq. (second edition). 



JOACHIM DI FLOR. 



217 



The words ' Eternal Gospel,' used as the name 
of a school, appear for the first time in the 
theological world in 1254. It was the moment 
when the quarrels of the University with the 
Mendicant Orders and of the Mendicant Orders 
between themselves were at their height. In 
the general fray, 'The Eternal Gospel' became a 
weapon for the various factions. The Dominicans 
reproached the Franciscans with it, and the 
Franciscans the disciples of St. Dominic. The 
University, through Guillaume de St. Amour, 
attributed it to the Mendicants, and, by a 
strange retaliation of public opinion, Guillaume de 
St. Amour himself passed as its author.* 

We are, in many respects, better able than con- 
temporaries to unravel these confusions. ' The 
Eternal Gospel' was certainly not the production 
of the Dominicans or the University ; it emanated 
from that dissident faction of St. Francis's con- 
gregation, which, in the midst of the general 
degeneracy of the Order, preserved the spirit of the 
founder, and continued to believe, throughout the 
thirteenth century and part of the fourteenth, that 
the seraphic rule contained the principle which 
would regenerate mankind, a second gospel superior 
to the first by its perfection and the duration 
assured to it. On this point no doubt is possible ; 

8 See M. Daunou's article on Jean de Parme, in vol. xx. 
of the ' Histoire litteraire de la France/ p. 23 et seq.j and 
the notes to the articles on Guillaume de St. Amour and 
Gerard d'Abbeville in vol. xxi., p. 458 et seq. 



218 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



but what uncertainties there are in all other re- 
spects! Did a work entitled ' The Eternal Gospel' 
ever really exist ? If so, who was its author? Is the 
whole or part of the work still extant ? Is there any 
hope of ever finding it ? Such are the questions 
whose solution I am about to attempt by means 
of certain documents, either unpublished, or from 
which criticism has not yet derived all the in- 
formation obtainable. In any case, Joachim's 
writings having been the pretext for and furnished 
the matter of ' The Eternal Gospel,' a critical 
discussion of their authenticity should precede all 
investigations concerning that subject. Such a 
work having never before found place in any 
publication relating to literary or ecclesiastical 
history, I am here obliged to attempt it. 

II. 

DISCUSSION ON THE AUTHENTICITY OF THE 
WORKS OF JOACHIM DI FLOR. 

In a letter, in the form of a will, and dated 
1200,* Joachim, minutely detailing the state of 
his writings at that time, mentions three works as 

° It may be read at the beginning of the editions of 1 The 
Concordance between the Two Testaments' (Venice, 1 5 1 9) 
and of ' The Commentary on the Apocalypse ' (Venice, 1 527), 
or in D'Argentre's ' Collectio Judiciorum,' i., p. 121, or in the 
' Bollandists,' /<%\ p. 104. M. Preger believes this letter 
to have been fabricated towards the middle of the thirteenth 
century, together with Joachim's apocryphal writings. But 
the Fourth Lateran Council (121 5) seems to have had it in 
view (Labbe, Cone. XI., part i., col. 148). 



JOACHIM DI FLOR. 



219 



completed, the ' Concordance of the Old and 
New Testaments,' the ' Commentary on the 
Apocalypse,' and the ' Decachord Psalter,' with- 
out speaking, he adds, of a few pamphlets against 
the Jews and the adversaries of the Catholic faith. 

These three writings are the only important 
works attributed to Joachim whose authenticity 
is well established. According to the most 
probable opinion, he died on the 30th of March, 
1202 ; at any rate, his life did not extend long 
after 1200. It is difficult to believe that, during 
his two or three last years, he should have 
composed the other works attributed to him, 
which are more voluminous than the productions 
of the whole of his previous life. Luke, after- 
wards Archbishop of Cosenza, who was his 
secretary, only mentions those three works.* 
Guillaume de Saint-Amour, combating his errors, 
does not refer to any other writings. t The Car- 
dinals who condemned his doctrine at Anagni only 
cite one letter besides those three productions.! 
Florent, Bishop of Saint Jean d'Acre, who played 
the part of promoter in this affair, only alleges the 
three great works. Guillaume d'Auvergne only 
mentions the ' Commentary on the Apocalypse ' 
and the ' Concordance. '§ Finally, we will shortly 

1 Acta SS./ Inc. czl., p. 93. 

f In Martene and Ducand's 'Amplissima Collectio,' vol. 
ix., col. 1323. See ' Histoire Litteraire de la France,' vol. 
xxi., p. 474. 

% Vide farther on, p. 270 et seq. 

§ ' De Virtutibus,' c. xi., p. 152 (Paris, 1674). 



220 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



show that the other books ascribed to the holy 
Abbot show internal evidence of being suppositi- 
tious. 

The three authentic works above mentioned 
were printed several times, and are to be found 
in a great number of manuscripts. We need not 
describe them. It is only necessary to say that 
the editing was done very carelessly, and that, 
therefore, notes and comments, not by Joachim, 
may have crept into the text. It must also be 
noted that the six books of the ' Commentary on 
the Apocalypse' are preceded by a 'Liber Intro- 
ductorius in Expositionem Apocalypsis,' often re- 
presented as a separate work under the title of 
'Enchiridion' or 'Apocalypsis Nova.'*" 

The pamphlet against the Jews, spoken of in 
Joachim's will, appears to be found in one of the 
Dresden manuscripts,t and to be connected with 
the 'Concordance.' It seems, however, that two 
letters should be added to Joachim's genuine 
works : 

(i) An unpublished letter addressed to the faith- 
ful, and beginning with these words : ' Loquens 
Domini Ezechieli Prophetae ;' it is to be met with 

° Sorbonne MS., No. 1726, fol. 92 back, lines 27, 28 ; 
fol. 103, lines 2, 3. This same work, in No. 427 of the old 
Latin collection, is called, I know not why, ' Liber de Diver- 
sitate Mysteriorum Dei.' Vide De Visch's * Bibl. Cisterc.,' 
p. 172. 

f 'Katalog der Handschriften der Bibl. zu Dresden,' 
vol. i., p. 57 ; De Visch's ' Biblioth. Cisterciensis,' p. 172; 
Tritheme, No. 389. 



JOACHIM DI FLOR. 



221 



in the MSS. 3595 of the old collection, fol. 19, at 
the back ; St. Germain, 58, last page, at the 
back; Sorbonne, 1726, fol. 59. 

(2) A letter, ' De articulis fidei, ad quemdam 
filium suum Joannem,' doubtless identical with a 
treatise ' De articulis fidei ' mentioned in the 
earliest lists of Joachim's writings.*" This work 
is only known by an extract to be found in the 
reports of the Anagni Commission which con- 
demned the ' Eternal Gospel' in 1225, and of which 
we shall shortly speak. t Joachim advises his 
disciple to keep the book carefully concealed, so as 
to avoid the suspicions of pseudo-zealots, always 

8 1 Joachim Abbatis et Florensis ordinis Chronologia ' 
(Cosenza, 1612), p. 92. ' Acta SS. Maii, 1 vol. vii., pp. 103, 105. 
The Bollandists give us only improbable conjectures about 
this work. 

f It reads as follows (Sorbonne MS., 1725, fol. 104 
back) : ' Idem habetur apertius inlibello ipsius Joachim, " De 
articulis fidei," descripto ad quemdam filium suum Jo- 
hannem, quod opus suspectum est ex ipso prologo, ubi sic 
incipit dicens : " Rogasti me attentius, fili Johannes, ut tibi 
compilatos traderem articulos fidei, et notarem ilia quae 
occurrerent Scripturarum loca, in quibus solent simplices 
frequenter errare. Ecce in subjecta pagina invenies quod 
petisti. Tene apud te, et lege sub silentio, observans ne per- 
veniat ad manus eorum qui rapiunt verba de convallibus, et 
currunt cum clamore, ut vocentur ab hominibus Rabbi, ha- 
bentes quidem speciem pietatis, virtutem autem ejus penitus 
abnegantes." Ecce qualiter in hoc prologo vult iste Joachim 
articulos fidei legi in abscondito, more hsereticorum qui in 
conventiculis dogmatizant. Item inhibet ne tractatus suus 
veniat ad manus magistrorum, quos etiam tarn impudenter 
quam superbe vituperat.' 



222 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



in quest of pretexts for scandal. The esoteric and 
secret character which Joachim was anxious to 
secure for this production fully explains the 
scarcity of copies. In it, perhaps, he maintained 
those doctrines respecting the Trinity opposed to 
Peter Lombard's, which brought upon him the 
condemnation of the fourth Lateran Council.* The 
Anagni reports also contain two more fragments 
of the same work, the one extracted from the first 
chapter, entitled ' De fide Trinitatis,' the other 
from the last, headed ' Confessio fidei ejus, id est 
Joachim ' (fol. 185) ; but these extracts only con- 
tain theological quibbles of hardly any critical 
interest. 

We may perhaps also attribute to Joachim two 
hymns on Paradise, the one in sapphic, the other 
in trochaic verse, which are found in the editions 
of his works after the ' Decachord Psalter.' The 
second of these compositions, purporting to be 
the relation of a journey through the supernatural 
world of spirits, is curious as having preceded the 
* Divine Comedy. ; f 

The Council seems, however, to refer to a distinct 
treatise : ' Libellum sive Tractatum quern Abbas Joachim 
edidit contra Magistrum Petrum Lombardum, de unitate seu 
essentia Trinitatis.' Labbe, ' Cone.,' vol. xi., part 1, pp. 144 et 
seg., 240; D'Argentre, ' Coll. Jud.,' i., pp. 120, 121. Vide De 
Visch, 'Bibl. Cisterc., 5 p. 173 ; Tritheme, ' De Script. Eccl.,' 
No. 389 ; De Lauro, in ' De Riso,' pp. 150, 151. 

f Neither M. Ozanam, nor Labitte, nor Mr. Thomas 
Wright, I believe, make any mention of this hymn in their 
works on Dante's trilogy. 



JOACHIM DI FLOR. 



223 



We will now enter upon the discussion of the 
works ascribed to Joachim, but whose authorship 
criticism may or must dispute.* 

The most important is the i Commentary on 
Jeremiah, 't supposed to be dedicated to the 
Emperor Henry VI., and printed several times at 
Venice. Its character is strikingly different from 
that of Joachim's authentic works. Whenever 
Joachim wishes to prophesy, he does so with self- 
control and reserve. He never names anyone : 
events are scarcely indicated ; the amplitude of 
biblical style enables him to make use of those 
vague phrases which become prophetic when 
events permit, without compromising their author 
when facts turn out differently. The ' Com- 
mentary on Jeremiah ' is precise in the extreme. 
The allusions to the events of the thirteenth 
century are obvious. Frederick II., who was only 
two years of age at the time when Joachim would 

De Lauro, Tritheme, and De Visch make some remarks; 
but they are too vague to bear discussion. 

t Subsequently to the first composition of this work, there 
appeared in the ' Zeitschrift fur wissenschaftliche Theologie' 
of M. Hilgenfeld (second year, Jena, 1859), a memoir of 
M. Karl Friedrich relative to that commentary, and the 
4 Commentary on Isaiah,' also attributed to Joachim. As 
regards the question of authenticity, M. Friedrich arrived at 
the same result as we did. M. Volter accepts that thesis as 
proved. — 'Zeitschrift fur Kirchengeschichte ' of Brieger 
(fourth year, Gotha, 1880), p. 367 et seq. Without being 
acquainted with either M. Friedrich's researches or mine, 
M. J. A. Schneider came to similar conclusions (' Joachim 
von Floris.' p. 27 et seq.). 



224 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



have written that work, is already designated in 
it by his enemies' usual metaphors, vipera, regulus. 
His reign is denounced as that of a tyrant, hostile 
to the Church, the destroyer of its privileges, the 
persecutor of its ministers, a new Evilmerodach 
who sits in the temple and is worshipped as a 
god. 

' In his youth,' says the prophet, ' he shall appear kind and 
amiable, he shall be nurtured by the Spouse of the Lamb ; 
but in after time, he, like another Belshazzar, shall only follow 
the impulse of his passions, and, with women, shall desecrate 
the sacred vessels of God's temple. But if you ask me what 
shall be his end, listen to Isaiah, who will teach you. A 
superhuman sword shall smite him, a sword which is no 
other but that of God's Word shall exterminate him, that you 
may know that God does not need the hands of men to drag 
this monster from his lair.' 

The Guelf of the thirteenth century betrays 
himself in the following curious words : 

' The Lord shall unsheath His sword, for the German rule 
has ever been harsh and cruel to us. Therefore it is necessary 
that the Lord shall strike it with the sword of His fury, that 
all kings may tremble at the crash of its fall/ 

And in another passage : 

' The army of the Chaldeans fighting against Jerusalem 
and Juda, with the exception of Lachis and Azecha, repre- 
sents the Germans and other persecutors armed against the 
Roman Church and the Latin cities of Italy, excepting those 



° Fol. 46 and 62 (Venice, 1525). This edition seems 
abridged in some passages. The text quoted by Don Ger- 
vaise (' Histoire de l'Abbe Joachim/ p. 35 et sey.) is more 
complete. 



JO A CHIM DI FL OR. 



225 



which are strong in their peoples or know how to seek protec- 
tion within their walls. The schism between the Church 
and the Empire begun by the Normans shall be consum- 
mated by the Germans, in whose invading tide shall be 
drowned the freedom of the pontiffs — in such a manner that 
the Empire, which served at first to raise and protect the 
Church, will, in the end, bring about its ruin.'f 

'The tendency of the Chaldean rule is annihilation,' says 
he again. ' The eagle shall come, ferocious as the leopard, 
sly as the fox, terrible as the lion, as says the Erythraean Sybil. 
Under the pretence of putting down the Patarins, he shall 
treacherously march against the Church, and, despite the 
resistance of Italy, despite the anathemas of the Church, he 
shall satisfy his rage. What dreadful evils shall then weigh 
down Liguria and Italy ! It will be easier to feel than to 
describe them. Under the united efforts of the Franks and 
the Germans, all the Roman nobility shall perish ; the pontiff 
shall be banished, the monasteries pulled down, Christian 
worship effaced from the earth.' 

France does not excite less apprehensions in 
the ultramontane prophet : 

' Let the Church be on her guard ! The alliance of 
France is like a reed that pierces the hand which leans on 

Those most disposed to accord the gift of 
prophecy to Joachim will doubtless find it difficult 

* ' Exceptis illis quae vel fortes populariter sunt, vel quae 
esse appetunt in suis munitionibus singulares.' 
f Fol. 58 back. Compare 53 back. 

% ' Videat generalis ecclesia si non fiet ei baculus arundi- 
neus potentia gallicana, cui siquidem si quis nititur perforat 
manum suam.' Cf. Isaiah xxvi. 6. Vide the chronicle ' De 
Rebus in Italia Gestis,' published by M. Huillard-Breolles, 
p. 257 ; cf. ibid., p. xxxvi. Vide also M. Waitz's extracts in 
Pertz, Archives,' vol. xi., third and fourth fascicules, pp. 511, 
512 (1855). 

15 



226 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



to admit that he could have shared so thoroughly 
in the passions of a century of which he only saw 
the early years. A last proof may, if needed, 
suffice to establish our point. The work we speak 
of is dedicated to Henry VI., who died in 1197 ; 
it must, therefore, have been composed before 
that date ; but, in the list of his writings, drawn 
up in 1200, Joachim makes no mention of the 
4 Commentary on Jeremiah.' 

This work must, therefore, be considered as the 
production of the school founded by the Order of 
St. Francis, which, as we shall presently see, 
endeavoured towards the middle of the thirteenth 
century to avail itself of Joachim's name to 
ensure the triumph of its doctrines. The ideas of 
the Franciscan Joachimites are met with on 
every page. According to the theories of that 
school, the year 1260 is pointed out as the term 
of the great tribulation which will close the reign 
of Christ and open that of the Holy Ghost.* 
Allusions to the two great mendicant Orders 
whose institution was said to have been predicted 
by Joachim frequently occur. And, as though 
the party which ascribed its opinions to Joachim 
feared that thoughts expressed so enigmatically 
would not attain the proposed end, some adherents 
of that party took care to explain all obscure 
passages in a pamphlet preserved in No. 836 
of Saint Germain, under the heading of ' Verba 
qusedam de dictis Joachim abbatis explanativa 
8 Fol. 45 back, 58 back, 62. 



JOACHIM DI FLOR. 



227 



super Jeremiam.' There, every anathema is ad- 
dressed in full, and to every threat is affixed a 
proper name. 

Our demonstration will be complete when 
we see what an important place is held by 
these apocryphal productions in the school of 
the ' Eternal Gospel.' The recently published* 
* Chronicle ' of Fra Salimbene, a Franciscan friar 
of the thirteenth century, furnishes us with new 
light on the subject. In it, Joachim's ' Com- 
mentary on Jeremiah ' is often quoted. Salimbene 
became acquainted with it for the first time in 
1248. t The irreconcilable feud between Frederic 
II. and the Italian and Pontifical party having 
begun about 1239, the date of the drawing up of 
the ' Commentary on Jeremiah ' is brought within 
sufficiently narrow limits. { 

Commentaries on Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, and 
the lesser prophets were several times printed at 
Venice, and are to be found in some manuscripts§ 

* Parma, 1857. f Pp. 102, 122, 176, 389. 

% The movement of Hall in Suabia (Fleury, lxxxiii.3 ) and 
the ' Epistola fratris Arnoldi, ordinis praedicatorum, de cor- 
rectione ecclesise,' published by Winkelmann (Berlin, 1865), 
offer the German, Ghibelline, and Dominican counterpart 
of the same movement. See M. Volter's memoir in the 
1 Zeitschrift fur Kirchengeschichte ' of Brieger, vol. iv., 1880, 
p. 360 et seq. 

§ Vide C. de Visch, ' Bibli. Cisterc./ pp. 172, 173; { Bol- 
landists/ 'Acta SS. Maii,' vol. vii., pp. 103, 105 ; Fabricius, 
4 Bibl. Med. et Inf. Latin,' vol. iv., pp. 40, 41 ; J. Wolf, 'Lec- 
tionum Memorabilium et Reconditarum Centenarii XVI./ 
vol. i., p. 488 et seq. 

15—2 



228 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



under Joachim's name. These productions are 
open to the same objections as the ' Commentary 
on Jeremiah.' It is hardly credible that in two 
or three years Joachim could have composed so 
much. Anachronisms and traces of conjecture 
are frequently met with in them. 

The ' De Oneribus Provinciarum,' given as a 
distinct work in No. 836 of St. Germain, and 
in some other MSS.,* is an extract from the 
' Commentary on Isaiah.' The author classes in 
provinces all the cities of the world of which he 
knows the names, and pronounces on each a 
prophetic word. Apart from^ the geographical 
interest of such a production, it contains much 
historical information respecting the events of the 
first half of the thirteenth century. Its author 
seems to have been influenced by the same 
antipathies as the commentator on Jeremiah. 
Hatred of the House of Hohenstaufen breaks out 
incessantly. Sicily is the hot-bed of tyranny and 
error — alumpna tyrannidis et erroris ; Calabria is 
the cavern of wrens, the hole of vipers. t Umbria 
and Spain shall see rise, like two stars, two orders 
clad in sackcloth and haircloth, whose mission 
will be to preach the Gospel of the kingdom. 

De Visch, p. 173 ; De Riso (pp. 122, 153), though 
wrongly, admits it as such, 
f Fol. 83 back, 84. 

These are names given to the Albigenses and other sects 
of the eleventh and twelfth centuries who used to inveigh 
against the immorality and simony of the clergy. — Trans- 
lator's Note. 



JOACHIM DI FLOR. 



229 



The devil shall stir up against them a ferocious 
beast, — the sect of the Patarins.* 

In the same category are to be classed the 
commentaries on the prophecies of Merlin and of 
the Erythraean Sybil, also dedicated to Henry VI., t 
and attributed to Joachim. They may be read 
in No. 3319 of the old collection, and in part in 
No. 865 of the St. Victor MSS.J These texts, not 
quite uniform, used to be cut up according to the 
fancy of compilers, and it is very difficult to 
ascertain their identity. Thus, No. 3319 contains 
in succession two different versions of the Com- 
mentary. It is remarkable that Merlin and the 
Erythraean Sybil should be frequently quoted in 
the ' Commentary on Jeremiah.' Here again 

* Fol. 80 v. I will here quote some other passages on 
the Patarins : ' Haeresis Patarena in Lombardiae terminis 
invalescens adeo suos circumquaque stimulos pravitatis ex- 
tendit ut non minus sit infesta Catholicis quam olim pro- 
phetis Domini fuit Athalia filia Jezabelis, etc. . . . Lom- 
bardorum gens impia . . . Deo detestabilis . . . qui quae 
de fumo putei, doctrina scilicet seculari, haereticos imbuit et 
aerem ecclesiastical puritatis infecit, aeternae rhomphaeam 
ultionis necesse est ut non evadat . . . Verona nutrix 
haeresis dirum deflebit excidium filiorum' (fol. 81 back, 82). 
1 Ut si campus tribulis et urticis, scilicet Patarenis, Gazaris et 
aliis schismaticis in Tolosa, Livonia (sic), et Ausonia, et 
Liguria diversisque partibus per Italiam occupetur, quum de 
fumo erroris eorum partes etiam remotissimas denigrantur ' 
(fol. 93 back). 

f De Visch, pp. 172, 173 ; De Lauro in De Riso, p. 151. 

X Perhaps in the Joachimite MS. of St. Omer. Vide 
supplement to the catalogue of that library by M. Theodore 
Duchet. Revue critique, Nov. 15, 1873, PP- 3 2 3? 3 2 4- 



230 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



Franciscan ideas break forth at every line. Fra 
Salimbene knew all these apocryphal prophecies, 
and contrasts them with the ' Commentary on 
Jeremiah.'* 

The ' De Oneribus Prophetarum ' is a com- 
mentary supposed to have been addressed to 
Henry VI. on certain chapters of Nahum, Ha- 
bakkuk, Zachariah, and Malachi. It is met with 
in the MSS. 3593 of the old collection, 836 of 
St. Germain, and 865 of St. Victor (incomplete), 
and also in the St. Omer MS., No. 278/f- It 
was printed at Venice in 1519. It was evidently a 
device of the forgers to dedicate all these apo- 
cryphal productions to Henry VI. in order to 
give them a genuine appearance. We may add 
that the dedicatory epistles are so unbecoming 
and so full of threats that their tone would alone 
be sufficient to show that they are forgeries. I 

In the St. Germain MS., No. 58 (last page 
but one), and 3595 of the old collection, fol. 22, 
there is, subjoined to other works of Joachim, a 
pamphlet without either title or author's name, 
under the form of a synoptical table, and begin- 
ning with these words : ' Helyas jam venit, et non 
cognoverunt eum.' It is the key to all Joachim's 
philosophy of history, symbolically connected with 
the opening of the seven seals of the Apocalypse. 
Fra Salimbene refers to it under the title of 

* Pp. 175, 176; cf. p. 106 et seq. 

f De Visch, p. 173 ; Duchet, loc. cit. 

% Compare Salimbene, p. 4. , 



JO A CHIM DI FL OR. 231 



' Book of Images.'* It gives the year 1260 as the 
end of the New Testament. Then shall appear 
Elias, and the Roman Church, destroyed by the 
emperor, shall be re-established. The last pope 
mentioned in this pamphlet is Innocent III., who 
reigned from 1198 to 1216. The author does not 
seem to employ any other artifice to pass himself 
off as Joachim. 

Fra Salimbene declares he received, at Hyeres, 
from the great Joachimite Hugues de Digne, a 
commentary by Joachim on the four gospels, 
which he copied at Aix for John of Parma. t This 
work is to be found in one of the Dresden manu- 
scripts.^; It is certainly an apochryphal produc- 
tion. 

Ch. de Visch § mentions the existence of 
one of Joachim's writings entitled ' De Seminibus 
Scripturarum ' in a Cistercian convent, near 
Saragossa. The learned M. Theodore Duchet 
met with this work in No. 278 of the St. Omer 
library.]] Its real title is ' De Semine Scriptu- 
rarum.' I would advise some young inquirer to 

Pp. 85, 124, 224. 
f Pp. 124, 125. 

X ' Katalog der Handschr. der Bibl. zu Dresden,' i., p. 57 
(Leipz., 1882). Vide also 'Acta SS.' volume already quoted, 
p. 103; De Visch, 'Bibl. Cisterc.,'- p. 172; Tritheme 
No. 389; De Lauro in De Riso, p. 151. The 'De septem 
sigillis' (De Visch and Tritheme, loc. cit.) seems to be an 
extract from it (' Katalog/ loc at.). 

§ Op. cit., p. 173. 

|| Vide Revue c?'itiqice, Nov. 15, 1873, p. 323. 



232 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



examine this manuscript, and ascertain its cha- 
racter, and also its degree of authenticity. The 
Saragossa manuscript contained, it seems, a 
Joachimite commentary on the 'Testament of the 
Twelve Patriarchs,' with which the Latins only 
became acquainted through the translation of 
Robert of Lincoln, made about 1242. 

The important Dresden manuscript, A, 121, 
contains (p. 235 et seq.) two other Joachimite 
pamphlets,* whose detailed examination might 
also prove of some use. 

The 'Commentary on the Prophecies of Cyrillus,' 
printed at Venice in 1517, several manuscripts 
of which are still in existence, is evidently an 
apocryphal work. The prophecies on the popes, 
attributed to Joachim, which in the Middle Ages 
enjoyed such great popularity, still less deserve to 
be discussed. When once the Abbot of Flor was 
called a prophet, his name was made a shelter by 
many whose political enthusiasm induced them 
to foretell the future. One feeling seems to inspire 
all the authors of these singular compositions, and 
imparts great unity to the apocryphal works of 
Joachim: this is hatred of the Court of Rome, 
which is identified with the scarlet woman of 
the Apocalypse ; of the pope, who is identified 
with Anti-christ ; of the emperor, who is repre- 
sented as the oppressor of Italy. All these works 
evidently come from the hands of a sect governed 
by the thought of thorough reform and of open 

Katalog der Handschr. der Bibl. zu Dresden, i., p. 57. 



JOACHIM DI FLOR. 



233 



revolt against the Church. For the present, it 
suffices us to have established that the responsi- 
bility of those fantastic productions cannot rest 
upon the Abbot of Flor, and to have proved that 
three great works, viz., ' The Concordance of the 
two Testaments,' ' The Commentary on the 
Apocalypse,' ' The Psalterion Decachordon,' and 
a few letters and treatises of secondary import- 
ance, alone deserve to bear Joachim's name. 



III. 

THE EXALTED FRANCISCAN SCHOOL. — JOHN OF 
PARMA. 

The inquiry we have just made into the writings 
of the Calabrian prophet has proved that none of 
the genuine or apocryphal works which appear 
under his name bear the title of 'Eternal Gospel.' 
The supposition (shared by such scholars as 
Tillemont, Crevier, and others) that Joachim did 
compose a work of that name, proceeds from a 
confusion which we will presently explain. It 
even appears that Joachim never very clearly 
avowed the seditious ideas subsequently attributed 
to him. The fourth Lateran Council (1215), 
though condemning the opposition he made to 
Peter Lombard on a point of metaphysics, ac- 
knowledged his submission to the Church and his 
perfect docility. 

Joachim would have been remembered only as 



234 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



a second-rate theologian and a bold exegetic, had 
not chance brought his name into prominence 
and associated it with one of the most daring 
attempts recorded in the history of Christian 
reformers. 

No one has yet pointed out all the historical 
significance of the Order of St. Francis. The 
historians of the religious orders have mainly con- 
cerned themselves with it as a monastic institu- 
tion ; men of taste and imagination have been 
chiefly interested in the wonderful outburst of 
poetry which it produced ; and thus the political 
and social aspirations concealed under what was 
apparently a purely ascetic movement have not 
been fully appreciated. The fact is, such hopes had 
never been conceived since the earliest days of 
Christianity. The 'Conformities,' by Bartholomew 
of Pisa, is not an isolated production ; it is the 
tardy manifesto of the secret thoughts of the Order. 
St. Francis's aim was not to add a new rule to 
the already long list of monastic rules ; it was to 
realize the Christian ideal, to show what could be 
done by carrying out the Sermon on the Mount 
to the letter as a law of life. At the root of 
the Franciscan attempt there lay the hope of a 
general reform of the world, of a restoration of the 
Gospel. It was admitted that, for twelve hundred 
years, the Gospel had not been acted upon; 
that the essential precept of Jesus, renunciation 
of earthly goods, had not been understood ; that, 
after centuries of widowhood, Poverty had at last 



JOACHIM DI FLOR. 



235 



found a spouse.* Was not this to confess that 
the birth of Francis of Assisi had opened a 
new era for Christianity and for mankind ?t 

These audacious pretensions, controlled in the 
founder by great mystical tenderness and perfect 
tact, unveiled themselves only by degrees ; but the , 
idea that holiness consisted solely in the renuncia- 
tion of property inevitably bore its fruit. When 
it was asserted that man had a right to seek for 
higher perfection than that to be found in the 
Church, was not this as much as to say that the 
Church must come to an end in order to make way 
for the society which taught that new perfection ? 
Even during the lifetime of the founder, but 
especially at the first chapter held after his death, 
two parties showed themselves in the Order ; the 
one, incapable of carrying out the superhuman 
undertaking dreamed of by the sublime mendicant, 
and wiser according to the flesh than the spirit of 
the seraphic institute allowed, thought that the 
primitive rigour of the rule was beyond human 
strength, that the rule might in certain respects 
be made milder, and that the Pope should grant 
dispensations accordingly. The other side main- 
tained, with surprising courage, that St. Francis's 
work had not yet borne all its fruits, that that work 
was superior to the Pope and to the Church of 
Rome, that the rule was a revelation dependent on 
God alone. At the bottom of their heart lay the 

Dante, ' Paradiso,' xi. 58 et seq. 

f Vide ' Fioretti/ chap, xvi., near the end. 



236 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



unavowed belief that the appearance of St. 
Francis was neither more nor less than the advent 
of a second Christ, as great as the first — greater, 
even, because of his poverty. Hence that strange 
legend in which the Seraph of Assisi, equal to 
Christ in all other things, is placed above him, 
because he never possessed anything of his own — 
not even those things which are consumed by use. 
And hence the openly avowed pretension that the 
Order of St. Francis was destined to absorb all 
other Orders, to supplant the universal Church 
itself, and to become the final form of human 
society on the eve of its disappearance. 

These lofty ideas, restrained by the common 
sense and also by the worldly spirit of the majority, 
were the secret of a small number when the ap- 
pointment of John Borelli, or Buralli, to the dignity 
of General of the Order, in 1247, twenty-one years 
after the death of the patriarch of Assisi, brought 
about a tumult and gave the new doctrine a definite 
name. John Buralli, born at Parma about 1209, 
was the most decided representative of the party 
which, anxious for the literal realization of the 
revelations of Monte Alverno, did not recoil before 
the most exaggerated social applications of the 
principle of poverty. He rejected all interpreta- 
tions of the rule, even those which had been pro- 
posed by doctors and sanctioned by popes. Per- 
suaded that the future of the Church and of 
mankind were bound up in the institution of St. 
Francis, he conceived the project of reviving the 



JOACHIM DI FLOR. 



237 



ideas of the founder, which the weakness of his 
disciples had allowed to fall into oblivion. The 
beginning of his term of office was a return to 
the Franciscan ideal in all its purity. The rule 
was again enforced in every detail. That which 
occurs at the outset of all religions had come to 
pass in the Order of Assisi. The true disciples 
of the founder, the saints, the ascetics, had soon 
become inconvenient ; in the years following 
Francis's death, the heirs of his spirit had nearly 
all been exiled or imprisoned ; one or two were 
even assassinated. John of Parma recalled the 
banished saints. The legend of Francis was 
taken up and embellished.* A will, exceeding 
in strictness even the prescriptions of the rule, 
was supposed to have been dictated by Francis 
when stigmatized. By his lofty piety, his con- 
tempt for earthly grandeurs, his dislike to the 
worldly splendours of ecclesiastical dignities, John 
of Parma was, for a time, to the zealots of the 
Order, the living image of their sainted founder. In 
the nine years of his rule a pious coterie flourished, 
which we know marvellously well through the 
memoirs of the frank and amiable Fra Salimbene, 
one of its members.-]- Joachim was, next to Francis, 
the oracle of this small school. His writings 
used to be eagerly read and copied. The Abbot 
of Flor, who had only left unknown disciples in 

The compilation of the narrative of the ' Three Com- 
panions ' dates from the year 1247. 

f See chiefly pp. 98 et seq. ; 101 et seq. ; 104, 317, et seq. 



238 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



Calabria, thus found in a different Order a devoted 
family and ardent followers. 

Here we certainly have the origin of the ' Eternal 
Gospel.' Already, in the fourteenth century, the 
Dominican Nicolas Eymeric, in his ' Directorium 
Inquisitorum,' refers to John of Parma as its 
author, and this has remained the opinion of nearly 
all ecclesiastical critics and historians. The efforts 
made by the authors of the literary history of the 
Franciscans, Wadding and Sbaraglia, in order 
to remove the blot of heresy from a Superior of 
their Order, have failed to obscure a truth which 
is demonstrably certain.* Yet a great number 
of questions remain to be solved. Does the 
* Eternal Gospel ' exist in any collection of manu- 
scripts ? What was its nature ? In drawing up 
the work, what were the respective shares of the 
master and of his disciple Gerard de Borgo San- 
Dormino, who, according to Fra Salimbene, was 
its sole author ? Here it is that manuscript docu- 
ments afford much light. We hope to show that 
fragments of the ' Eternal Gospel ' and the docu- 
ments relating to the trial connected with it have 
safely come down to us. 

IV. 

ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS WHICH THROW LIGHT ON 
THE QUESTION OF THE * ETERNAL GOSPEL.' 

These documents are preserved in two MSS. 
from the library of the old Sorbonne, now in the 
° Vide M. Daunou's article previously quoted. 



JOACHIM DI FLOR. 



2 39 



Bibliotheque Nationale (Sorbonne collection, Nos. 
1726, fourteenth century; 1706, fifteenth century), 
and in another manuscript which formerly belonged 
to the College of Navarre, now in the collection 
of the Bibliotheque Mazarine (No. 391, fifteenth 
century) . These manuscripts have not been wholly 
unknown to critics. Quetif and Echard, two 
learned Dominicans who applied themselves to 
making a careful abstract of the Sorbonne MSS., 
quoted, though incidentally, a passage taken from 
No. 1726, with regard to Hugues de St. Cher.* 
M. Daunou was acquainted with the fragment 
mentioned by Quetif and Echard, and made use 
of it in his excellent work on John of Parma ; but 
he did not refer to the original manuscript. M. 
Victor le Clerc saw at once the importance of 
the documents contained in that manuscript, and 
the account to which they could be turned. No. 
1706, much less complete than No. 1726, was 
employed by the Bishop of Tulle, Du Plessis 
d'Argentre, for his great compilation, ' Collectio 
Judiciorum de Novis Erroribus ' (vol. i., Paris, 
1724). M. Haureau took it up and examined it. 
As for the manuscript now deposited in the 
Bibliotheque Mazarine, it was pointed out to me 
by the learned M. Taranne, who had described it 
in view of a catalogue of the manuscripts of the 
said library begun by him.f 

m ' Script, ord. Prasd., 5 vol. i., p. 202. 
t Among the extracts from the MSS. of Rome, by La Porte 
du Theil, which are in the MS. department of the Bibliotheque 



240 NEW STUDIES OE RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



. The extracts relative to the ' Everlasting- 
Gospel ' contained in these three manuscripts are 
four in number. 

i. In No. 1726 of the Sorbonne, and only in 
that manuscript,* is to be found a writing whose 
title runs as follows : Exceptiones librorum viri cru- 
ditissimi vencrabilis Joachim, primi Florcntium 
abbatis, dc pressures scculi ct mundi fine ct signts 
ct terroribus ct ccrumnis, scu etiam dc pscudo- 
christis ct pscudo-prophctis, quorum plura scripta sunt 
in divinis scrmonibus, scd idcirco non omnibus clara. 
Quia mult is sunt nodis pcrplcxa ct occultis mystcriis 
qua omnia spiritualitcr intellccta ostendunt nobis 
multa qucz futura sunt novissimis dicbus, laboriosos 



Nationale (vol. vii., p. 323 ; vol. xviii., p. 56), is one which 
professes to come from No. 4380 of Queen Christina, headed : 
' Articuli cujusdam libri, Parisiis combusti, qui dicebatur 
Evangelium sempiternum. Incipit, Sequuntur articuli quad- 
raginta.' I dare not identify this piece with certainty. I re- 
commend it to young students of the ' Ecole de Rome.' 

The Sorbonne MS., 1726, is composed of a collection of 
fragments, each bearing a distinct pagination. The only part 
of interest to us comprises 106 pages. The last page bears the 
following notes written by different hands : 1 Errores qui 
continentur in Introductorio in Evangelium eternum, et in 
libro Concordiarum Joachim ;' then : ' In hoc volumine con- 
tinentur extractiones librorum Joachim, et extractiones 
de Evangelic eterno, et reprobationes eorumdem. — Quod 
volumen est pauperum magistrorum de Sorbona, ex legato 
magistri Petri de Lemovicis, quondam socii domus hujus. — 
Pretii 20 solidorum. — 39 us inter originalia mixta sanctorum. 
— Residuum require in papiro post librum de gradibus elec- 
torum.— Chatenabitur.' 



JOACHIM DI FLOR. 



241 



scilicet rerum fines et, post multos et magnos agones 
et certamina, pacem victorious impertirt. 

The work goes on in this strain for seventy- 
eight pages, and terminates abruptly, without 
explicit or conclusion. It is an extract from 
Joachim's authentic or apocryphal works, without 
any commentary by the compiler.* The purpose 
of this collection is obvious : it was meant to 
compress within a very small book all Joachim's 
doctrine. We shall have to examine if the com- 
pilation contained in }our manuscript may be 
identified with any of the writings which played 
a part in the affair of 1254. 

2. The second document found in the three 

The works thus abridged are seven in number. i°. 
From fol. 1 to fol. 38 back, there are extracts from the book of 
the ' Concordance between the two Testaments. 5 2 . From fol. 
38 back to fol. 48, there are extracts from the ' Liber introduc- 
torius in Apocalypsim,' which, as we saw previously, serves 
as an introduction to the 1 Exposition of the Apocalypse ' 
by Joachim. 3 . From fol. 48 to fol. 49, extracts from the 
' Psalterion Decachordon.' 4 . From fol. 49 to fol. 59, extracts 
from the ' Commentary on Jeremiah,' attributed to Joachim. 
5 . From fol. 59 to fol. 63 back, Joachim's letter referred to 
above, and beginning with ' Loquens Dominus Ezechieli.' It 
is unfinished, and followed by a small French fragment by 
a different hand : 4 C'est que len dit es profecies de Joachim 
escrit ou grant liure de Concordances : an lan de grace mil 
et cc et mi** et v serunt batallies es pleins de Nerbone 
de quatre rois esqueles morront,' etc. A lacuna, then, from 
fol. 65 to fol. 76, extracts from the ' De oneribus prophetarum,' 
attributed to Joachim. 7°. From fol. 76 to fol. 78 back, ex- 
tracts from the ' Commentary on Ezekiel,' also attributed to 
Joachim. 

16 



242 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



manuscripts before mentioned is an extract from 
the heterodox propositions discovered in the book 
entitled ' Introductorium in Evangelium seternum' 
by the commission of cardinals appointed by Pope 
Alexander IV., in 1255, to examine the said work. 
Du Plessis d'Argentre published this document 
from the manuscript 1706 of the Sorbonne,* which 
is the least perfect of the three. D'Argentre's 
edition has lacunae in many important passages, 
particularly in the precise references made by the 
pontifical censors to the text of the 1 Introduc- 
torium.' Whenever it is necessary, to complete 
D'Argentre's text, we will give the original in the 
notes.f To begin with, it is important to point 
out a passage omitted by the learned Bishop : 
* Towards the end of the twelfth chapter we 
read these words : . . . Until that angel who car- 
ried the sign of the living GodJ and appeared about 
the year 1200 of the incarnation, and whom friar 
Gerard recognised as no other than St. Francis. '§ 
This Gerard is assuredly Gerard deBorgo San Don- 

* ' Coll. Jud.,' i., p. 193 et seq. 

f This is the opening which has been curtailed by 
D'Argentre : ' Haec notaviimus et extraximus de " Intro- 
ductory in Evangelium aeternum," misso ad dominum papam 
ab episcopo Parisiensi, et tradito nobis tribus cardinalibus 
ad inspiciendum ab eodem domino papa, videlicet O. Tuscu- 
lanensi, Stephano Praenestino episcopis, et Hugoni Sanctae 
Sabinas presbytero cardinali.' 

\ The stigmata. 

§ ' Item in xii. capitulo, versus flnem, ponit haec verba : 
" Usque ad ilium angelum qui habuit signum Dei vivi, qui 
apparuit circa MCC incarnationis dominicae, quern angelum 
frater Gerardus vocat et confitetur sanctum Franciscum." ' 



JOACHIM DI FLOR. 



243 



nino, whom Salimbene considers to have played 
the chief part in the affair of the ' Eternal Gospel' 
3. After this enumeration of errors, there follows 
in the Sorbonne MS., No. 1726 (fol. 91 back), and 
in the MS. of the ' Bibliotheque Mazarine ' (fol. 86 
back), an extensive report of one of the sittings 
of the Anagni Commission. This document not 
being found in No. 1706 has escaped D'Argentre : 
it has never been published. 

' In the year of our Lord 1255, on the 8th of the ides of 
July, at Anagni, before us Eudes, Bishop of Tusculum, and 
Friar Hughes, cardinal priest,f commissioners appointed by 
the pope, together with the Reverend Father Stephen,+Bishop 
of Praeneste, who has excused himself through his chaplain 
and has delegated to us his powers in this affair, there ad- 
peared Master Florent, Bishop of Acre,§ who submitted to 
us some passages from Joachim's books which appeared 
suspicious to him. . . To investigate these passages we have 
secured the aid of two other persons, viz. : Friar Bouvalet, 
Bishop of . . .,|| and Friar Peter, reader of the preaching 
friars of Anagni, one of whom followed the text of the original 
books of Joachim di Flor, and ascertained' in our presence 



Eudes de Chateauroux, who plays an important part in 
the life of St. Louis. Vide Fleury's ' Histoire ecclesiastique,' 
books lxxxii., No. 33 ; lxxxiii., No. 45 ; Ixxxv., No. 7. 

f This is the famous Hugues de Saint-Cher. 

% He was a Hungarian and Archbishop of Strigonia. See 
Fleury's 1 Hist, eccl.,' book lxxxv., No. 7. 

§ Florent or Florentin, Bishop of Acre, became afterwards 
Archbishop of Aries. We shall find him about 1260 again 
condemning the Joachimites at the Council of Aries. Cf. 
' Gallia Christiana,' vol. i., p. 569. 

[| The name of the bishopric is doubtful. Can it be the 
ecclesia Panidensis of the ' Oriens christianus,' hi., col. 
966-67 ? 

16 — 2 



244 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



whether the quotations, which the saicTBishop of Acre read or 
caused to be read by our registrar, were really contained 
in the aforesaid books. He began thus : 

' " The fundamental principle of Joachim's doctrine is, first 
of all, to be noted ; it consists in distinguishing three states 
in the history of the world ; this he does in the 4th chapter 
of the 2nd book, which begins with these words : ' Intelli- 
gentia vero ilia,' saying : ' Aliud tempus fuit in quo vivebant 
homines secundum carnem,' " etc.' ' 

What follows is chiefly composed of a series of 
passages taken from Joachim's genuine works, 
that is, from the ' Concordance,' from the ' Apoca- 
lypsis nova ' or ' Liber introductorius in Apoca- 

'Anno Domini M°CC°LV° vin., idus Julii, Anagniae, coram 
nobis, Odone episcopo Tusculano, et fratre Hugone pres- 
bytero cardinali, auditoribus et inspectoribus datis a papa, 
una cum reverendo patre Stephano Praenestino episcopo, se 
excusante per proprium capellanum suum, et nobis quantum 
ad hoc vices suas committente, comparuit magister Floren- 
tius, episcopus Acconensis, proponens quaedam verba de libris 
Joachim extracta, suspecta sibi, ut dicebat, nec publice, 
dogmatizanda aut praedicanda, nec in scriptis redigenda, ut 
fieret inde doctrina sive liber, pro ut sibi videbatur. Et ad 
haec audienda et inspicienda vocavimus una nobiscum duos 
alios, scilicet fratrem Bonevaletum, episcopum Pavendensem, 
et fratrem Petrum, lectorem fratrum prasdicatorum Anagniae, 
quorum unus tenebat originalia Joachim de Florensi monas- 
terio, et inspiciebat coram nobis utrum haec essent in pras- 
dictis libris quae praedictus episcopus Acconensis legebat et 
legi faciebat per tabellionem nostrum, et incipiebat sic : 

1 Primo notandum est fundamentum doctrinae Joachim. 
Et proposuit tres status totius seculi, iiil capitulo secundi 
libri, quod incipit : Intelligentia vero ilia, etc., dicens : "Aliud 
tempus fuit in quo vivebant homines secundum carnem, cui 
initiatio facta est in Adam." ' This passage actually occurs 
in the ' Concordance ' (p. 8 of the edition published at Venice 
in 1519). 



JOACHIM DI FLOR. 



245 



lypsim,' and from the ' Decachord Psalter,' with 
criticisms on the erroneous propositions found in 
them. At intervals, there are quotations from one 
of Joachim's commentators named ' Frater Ge- 
rardus,'* who is no other than Gerard de Borgo 

* I give here the chief passages relating to this important 
personage : 

Fol. 94 of the MS. 1726. ' Quod exponens frater G. scrip- 
sit : " Hasc abominatio erit pseudopapa, ut habetur alibi." 
Et istud " alibi " reperitur longe infra, v. libro Concordias de 
Zacharia propheta, ubi dicitur : " In Evangelio dicitur : 
' Quum videritis abominationem desolationis quae dicta est a 
Daniele," 5 etc. . . Rursus et ibi frater G.: " Haec abomin- 
atio quidam papa erit simoniaca labe respersus, qui circa 
finem sexti temporis obtinebit in sede, sicut scribit inquodam 
libello ille qui fuit minister hujus operis." ' 

Fol. 96 back, after a quotation from the ' Commentary on 
the Apocalypse,' ' Hucusque verba Joachim et fratris Gerardi.' 

Fol. 99. ' Item habetur per notulam fratris Gerardi super 
principium ejusdem capituli Danielis, ubi dicit sic frater 
Gerardus : " Hasc tribulatio, quae erit talis qualis nunquam 
fuit, debet fieri, ut ex multis locis apparet tarn in hoc libro 
quam in aliis, circa M.CCLX annum incarnationis dominicae ; 
post quam revelabitur Antichristus. Haec tribulatio erit in 
corporalibus et spiritualibus maxime. Sed tribulatio maxima, 
quae statim sequetur interposito tamen cujusdam spatio 
quantulaecumque pacis, erit magis in spiritualibus ; unde erit 
periculosior quam prima." ' 

Fol. 100 back. ' Super hoc Gerardus in Glossa : " In hoc 
mysterio vocat terrain scripturam prioris Testamenti, aquam 
scripturam novi Testamenti, ignem vero scripturam Evange- 
lii asterni." 5 

Ibid. ' Super hoc glossa fratris Gerardi: " Declaratio est ejus 
quod dicitur Evangelium asternum in secundo libro Psalterii 
decern chordarum, scilicet xix. capitulo, quod incipit : In 
$rimo sane teinftore" ' 

Fol. 102. ' Notula fratris Gerardi : " In hoc loco vir indutus 



246 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



San-Donnino, whose name we found before in the 
above mentioned second document. We will 
later on draw conclusions from all this. 

4. The fourth document exists only in No. 
1760 of the Sorbonne. D'Argentre published 
it from that manuscript with some errors and 
omissions.* M. Preger edited it from two 
Munich manuscripts. f It is a new enumeration 
of the errors contained in the ' Eternal Gospel ' — 
errors identical with those attributed by Nicolas 
Eymeric to John of Parma \% but Nicolas 
Eymeric contents himself with mentioning the 
errors without saying where they come from, 
whereas our manuscript furnishes important indi- 

lineis, qui fuit minister hujus opens, loquitur de se et de 
duobus qui secuti sunt eum statim post M.CC um annum incar- 
nationis dominiae ; quos Daniel dicit se vidisse super ripam 
fluminis ; quorum unus dicitur in Apocalypsi Angelus habens 
falcem acutam, et alius dicitur Angelus qui habuit signum 
Dei vivi, per quern Deus renovabit apostolicam vitam." Idem 
ibidem, super illud verbum Evangelium regni, dicit similiter 
Gerardus in notula : " Evangelium regni vocat Evangelium 
spirituale, quod beatus Joachim vocat Evangelium aaternum, 
quod in adventu Helyae prasdicari oportet omnibus gentibus, 
et tunc veniet consummation ' 

Fol. 102 back. ' Dicit frater Gerardus in notula : " Iste 
doctor sive angelus apparuit circa M.CC. annum incarnationis 
dominicae, hoc est ille liber de quo loquitur hie, in quo vii. 
tonitrua locuta sunt voces suas, quae sunt mysteria vii. sig- 
naculorum.' 

* 'Coll. Jud.,'i., d. 164 and fol. 

t ' Abhandlungen' of the Munich Academy, vol. xii., 3rd 
part, p. 33 and fol. 

% 'Direct. Inq.,' p. 188-89 (Roma?, 1578). 



JOACHIM DI FLOR: 



247 



cations on that point. Usserius and Meyenberg* 
reproduced, from the chronicle of Henry of Hert- 
ford, a text resembling that of our manuscript, 
much less correct in general, though more com- 
plete towards the end. Indeed, instead of conclud- 
ing, like D'Argentre's text, with the errors taken 
from the fourth book of the second part, Meyen- 
berg's text, in accordance with that of M. Preger, 
distinguishes two treatises in that fourth book,-f* 
and gives the errors of both ; it then takes up the 
fifth book, in which he points out five treatises : 
one, ' De septem diebus ;' another, ' De Jobo ;' a 
third, ' De Joseph et pincerna cui somnium, 
apparuit a fourth, ' De tribus generibus homi- 
num, videlicet Israeliticis, iEgyptiacis, Babyloniis;' 
a fifth, - De historia Judith.' Towards the end, 
in the Munich MSS., we read this curious anno- 
tation : i Ex hiis autem quae dicuntur ibi in expo- 
sitione hystorias de David potest intelligi quod ille 
qui composuit opus quod dicitur Evangelium 
asternum non fuit Joachim, sed aliquis vel aliqui 
moderni temporis, quoniam facit ibi mentionem 
de Frederico imperatore, persecutore romanas 
ecclesise.' % 

' De pseudo Evangelio aeterno ' (praeside J. A. Schmidt), 
p. 11 and fol. (Helmstadt, 1725). 

f Instead of 'De quarto libro hujus duo errores extrahi 
possunt ' (D'Argentre), we must read : ' De quarto libro hujus 
partis, in primo tractatu, duo errores extrahi possunt.' 

J Preger, work quoted above, p. 36. 



248 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



V. 

THE BOOK OF THE 'ETERNAL GOSPEL.' 

Having indicated the texts on which I intend 
to base my argument, I must now draw the con- 
clusions. What are we to think of the book 
entitled the ' Eternal Gospel ' ? Was it distinct 
from the ' Introduction to the Eternal Gospel ' ? 
Is this last-named work still extant ? Is Gerard's 
work, mentioned in the Anagni trial, identical 
with the ' Introduction to the Eternal Gospel ' ? 
What was the relation existing between these 
works and the genuine productions of Abbot 
Joachim? What is the date of their composition? 

We must not be surprised at the difficulties 
offered by questions apparently so simple. No 
historical questions are more difficult to solve 
than those which aim at discovering in the past 
qualities created by the spirit of the present. 
The scruples of exact bibliography were all but 
unknown in the Middle Ages. The rigorous in- 
dividuality of a book is a recent idea. Printing 
itself, which was to bring about such a thorough 
change in that respect, modified but slowly the 
public modes of thought. 

The form and composition of the 1 Eternal 
Gospel ' are clearly revealed to us by the report 
of the Cardinals of Anagni (the second of the 
before-mentioned documents). It is there said 



JOACHIM DI FLOR. 



249 



expressly* that the ' Eternal Gospel ' was divided 
into three parts, and formed by the combination 
of the three authentic works of Abbot Joachim, — 
the ' Concordance of both Testaments ' being the 
first book, the 'New Apocalypse 't the second, 
and the ' Decachord Psalter ' the third. The 
fragments left of Gerard's notes lead to the 
same inference. Indeed, Gerard designates 
Joachim by these words : ' Ille qui fuit minister 
hujus operis.' A curious marginal note in the 
manuscript of the Bibliotheque Mazarine, which 
belonged to the College of Navarre, has the same 
meaning. J This note formally attributes to 
Joachim a book entitled * Evangelium seternum,' 
and points out the place it occupies in the library 
of the College of Navarre. Therefore, in the 
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, there were still 
manuscripts in which the three productions of 

* D'Argentre, p. 163. After hcec verba, we must add: 
' In prirno libro Evangelii ceterni, videlicet in secundo 
secundse concordise. Et tria prsedicta probantur similiter 
expresse xxi. capitulo, B, ubi distinguitur triplex littera. Ibi : 
"Attendent vero," etc. . . et similiter ante finem ultimi capit- 
uli, ubi dicitur : " Illud attendendum," etc.' 

■f See above, pp. 218, 219. It must be noticed that the work 
referred to here is not the complete commentary on the 
Apocalypse, but the preliminary book which Joachim wrote 
as an introduction to it. 

% Here is the note corresponding with Item quod per virum 
in the second document : ' Nota ista usque ad finem de 
erroribus contends in libro abbatis Joachim quern vocavit de 
Evangelio asterno, qui liber est in pulpitro affixo parieti. 
This note is written in a fifteenth century hand. 



250 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



Joachim were collected and bore the common 
title of ' Evangelium aeternum.' Such manu- 
scripts must have been the fruits of the movement 
of 1254, since we have seen that Joachim himself 
never gave that title either to any particular work 
of his or to the whole collection of his writings. 
I believe that at the present day no library 
possesses a manuscript with such a title. 

Despite an apparent contradiction, the fourth 
document enumerated above confirms the result 
we have just arrived at concerning the composition 
of the ' Eternal Gospel,' and proves that that was 
not only the private judgment of the Anagni Com- 
missioners. In it we find that the ' Eternal Gospel ' 
(properly so called) contained at least two parts. 
The first was called ■ Praeparatorium in Evange- 
lium aeternum,' the second ' Concordia novi et 
Veteris Testamenti,' or 1 Concordia veritatis,' and 
was divided into five books. It is evident that the 
author of this document considered the ' Intro- 
ductorium ' or ' Prseparatorium in Evangelium 
aeternum,' which elsewhere is distinguished from 
the ' Eternal Gospel,' was the first book of that 
same ' Eternal Gospel.' The ' Concordance ' 
becomes thus the second book. If there is here 
no question of the ' Apocalypse ' and the ' Deca- 
chord Psalter,' this is, no doubt, either because 
they were considered as of minor importance, 
or because they only repeated the errors of 
the ' Prseparatorium ' or the 'Concordia.' But 
what unquestionably proves the truth of our 



JOACHIM DI FLOR. 



251 



hypothesis is : 1st, that the errors given in the 
fourth document as taken from the first part of 
the ' Eternal Gospel,' entitled ' Prasparatorium in 
Evangelium aeternum,' are identical with those 
found in the report of the Cardinals at Anagni as 
extracts from the 1 Introductorium in Evangelium 
aeternum;' 2nd, that the errors given in the 
fourth document as extracts from the second part 
of the ' Eternal Gospel ' are really extracted from 
Joachim's book the ' Concordance,' whose order 
and divisions are followed point by point. The 
difference is simply a difference of arrangement. 
We will adopt as preferable that followed by the 
Anagni Commission. 

It is therefore an established fact that the 
c Eternal Gospel ' properly so called was nothing 
but the collection of the three chief writings of 
Joachim, and that, consequently, the ' Introduction 
to the Eternal Gospel ' was distinct from it, though 
sometimes subjoined to it as a first book. This 
distinction is made evident in the report of the 
Anagni Commission. There we see, in fact, that 
the cardinals had in their hands a book entitled 
' Introductorium in Evangelium aeternum,' for- 
warded to the pope by the Bishop of Paris ; we 
learn, besides, that the work was divided into 
chapters, not into books ; lastly, the conclusion 
arrived at by the cardinals, that the ' Eternal 
Gospel ' was formed by the collection of the three 
works of Joachim, is based upon their investigation 
, of the ' Introductorium.' Here is another proof 



252 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



of the same distinction. This Florent, Bishop 
of Acre, who appears as promoter in the trial at 
Anagni, becoming subsequently Archbishop of 
Aries, presided about the year 1260 over a council 
in which he again condemned the errors of 
Joachim. From the speech he pronounced at 
that council, it appears that the Anagni Commis- 
sion meant to condemn pamphlets scattered about 
under the title of ' Gospel of the Holy Ghost ' and 
' Eternal Gospel,' and not Joachim's actual works, 
which, till then, had been little read and not dis- 
cussed at all.* Lastly, Fra Salimbene calls the 
work of his friend Gerard a 1 little book,' libellum.f 
Unfortunately, feeling the honour of his Order 
compromised by all this affair, he omits to give 
us the exact title of Gerard's pamphlet. 

c 1 Et licet nuper, prassentibus nobis et procurantibus, a 
sancta Dei sede apostelica damnata fuerit nova quaedam,quae 
ex his pullulaverat, doctrina venenata Evangelii Spiritus 
Sancti pervulgata nomine, ac si Christi Evangelium non 
aeternum nec a Spiritu Sancto nominari debuisset ; tanquam 
pestis hujusmodi fundamenta non discussa fuerint nec dam- 
nata, liber videlicet Concordantiarum et alii libri Joachitici, 
qui a majoribus nostri usque ad haec tempora remanserunt 
intacti, utpote latitantes apud quosdam religiosos in angulis 
et antris, doctoribus indiscussi ; a quibus si ruminati fuissent, 
nullatenus inter sacros alios et sanctorum codices mixti re- 
mansissent, quum alia modica Joachitica opuscula, quae ad 
eorum pervenere notitiam, tarn solemniter sint damnata 
etc. . . . (Labbe, 'Cone./ vol. xi., 2nd part, col. 2361,2362). 
Does it not seem as though Florent had under his eyes a 
note in which the writings were classified just as in the note 
to be seen at the close of MS. 1726 from the Sorbonne collec- 
tion, 39US inter originalia mixta sanctorum? 

f viii., 102, 233, 235, 236. 



JOACHIM DI FLOR. 



253 



We are thus brought to consider the ' Intro- 
duction to the Eternal Gospel' as a book intended 
to sum up the doctrine of Joachim, and to revive 
it for the promotion of Franciscan ideas. At the 
same time the want of precision inherent to 
mediaeval bibliography occasioned endless mis- 
takes on the subject. The name of ' Eternal 
Gospel ' was nearly always applied to the ' Intro- 
duction.' We have just had a proof of this in the 
words pronounced by Archbishop Florent at the 
Council of Aries. Matthieu Paris and Guillaume 
de Saint -Amour are both guilty of the same 
confusion ; the former, when he says that the 
friar composed a book which began with these 
words : ' Incipit Evangelium aeternum/ a book 
which he calls, further on, ' Novus ille liber quern 
Evangelium aeternum nominant;* the latter, when 
he quotes as from the 1 Eternal Gospel ' words which 
are not to be found, at least not with the same 
meaning, in Joachim's works.t Nicolas Eymeric % 
represents as extracts from the ' Eternal Gospel ' 
the errors found in the ' Liber introductorius ' by 
the Anagni Commission. The librarian of the 
House of Sorbonne who, in the fourteenth century, 
added various notes to the end of MS. No. 1726, 
carelessly fell into the same confusion. 
p viii., 1254 (London edition, 1 571 ). 

f ' Scripta sunt tria ipsa verba Mane Thecel Phares in illo 
maledicto libro quern appellant Evangelium aeternum, quod 
jam in ecclesia propalatum est, propter quod timendum est 
de subversione ecclesiae.' — ' De peric. noviss. temp./ p. 37. 

% ' Directorium Inquisitorium,' p. 188 (Romse, 1578). 



254 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



It must be confessed that the Anagni documents 
do not, so clearly as might be desired, point to 
Gerard as the author of the ' Introduction to the 
Eternal Gospel.' The first Anagni document re- 
presents the ' Introduction to the Eternal Gospel' 
as a book composed of a continuous text and 
divided into chapters. With respect to that book, 
the cardinals cite, indeed, one of Friar Gerard's 
opinions, but they do not say whether that note is 
to be found in the work itself, or whether Friar 
Gerard is the author of the work. Elsewhere 
they vaguely say: ' Scriptor hujus operis,'* and 
they accuse him of representing himself as one of 
the twelve angels of St. Francis, regarded as a 
second Christ. t The second Anagni document, 
which no longer relates to the ' Introduction,' 

This passage is almost wholly omitted by D'Argentre. 
' Item quod per virum indutum lineis intelligat Joachim scrip- 
tor hujusi operis probatur xxi. capitulo, circa medium, per 
verba de quinque intelligentiis generalibus et septem typicis, 
ubi sic ait : " Vir indutus lineis in apertione mysteriorum 
Jeremioe prophetas : ecce, ait, prseter historicum, moralem, 
tropologicum, etc. . Item xxii., circa principium, ita 
dicitur : " Ad quam Scripturam tenetur populus tertii status 
mundi, quemadmodum populus primi status ad Vetus Testa- 
mentum, et populus secundi ad Novum, quantumcumque 
hoc displiceat hominibus generationis istius.' 

f . . . ' Sic in principio tertii status erunt tres similes 
illorum, scilicet vir indutus lineis, et angelus quidam habens 
falcem acutam, et alius angelus habens signum Dei vivi' 
(here the MS. 1726 bears between the lines : 'scilicet sanc- 
tus Franciscus'). 'Et habuit' (D Argentre' 'habebit') 'similiter 
angelos duodecim, inter quos ipse fuit unus, etsi Jacob habuit 
duodecim in primo statu, et Christus in secundo.' 



JOACHIM DI FLOR. 



255 



always refers to Joachim's works under their 
proper divisions, and mentions Gerard's notes as 
distinct. The most probable conclusion from 
all this is that two works were censured by the 
Anagni Commission : first the ' Introductorium,' 
the continuous text composed by Gerard ; in 
the second place, a sort of new edition, or rather 
a series of extracts from the three authentic works 
of Joachim, with Gerard's notes,* either in the 
margin or in the text itself. The latter is the work 
which Florent (the promoter of the Commission) 
held in his hand, and from which he read. The 
two assistant readers, Friar Bonvalet and Friar 
Peter of Anagni, on the contrary, had before them 
Joachim's works themselves, verifying the quota- 
tions and distinguishing that which belonged to 
Joachim from that which belonged to Gerard. 
Sometimes, indeed, the Anagni reports seem to 
give the words of the two authors as indis- 
tinguishable. 

There is, in fact, perfect harmony between the 
ideas contained in the notes of Gerard, as quoted 
by the Anagni Commission, and the ideas con- 
tained in the ' Liber introductorius.' All these 
notes are written in the spirit of the productions 
of John of Parma, and of the ' exalted ' section of 
the Order of St. Francis. Antipathy against 
temporal papacy, hatred of the wealthy clergy, 

* The style of the gloss is especially obvious in passages 
like the following : . . Illse generationes yalde breves erunt, 
ut apparebit inferius in multis locis ' (omitted by D'Argentre). 



256 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



the belief that the final abomination will come 
from a worldly and simoniacal pope, the fixing 
upon the year 1260 as the fatal date, the belief 
that the appearance of Antichrist is at hand and 
that that monster will spring up from Rome, 
the naming of St. Francis as the renovator of 
the century and of Joachim as his precursor — all 
these are traits which belong, without doubt, to 
that school which, towards the middle of the 
thirteenth century, extolled the name of Joachim 
as a support for its projects of social and religious 
reform. Several of the propositions of that school, 
referred to by Salimbene* and by John of Meung,t 
are found textually in Gerard's fragments, for 
the preservation of which we are indebted to the 
Anagni reporters. 

Our documents do not throw any light on the 
parts played by John of Parma and Gerard re- 
spectively in the composition of the * Introduc- 
torium.' The passage in which the ' author ' ranks 
himself among the twelve angels of St. Francis is 
more in harmony with the character of John of 
Parma than with that of Gerard. The reports 
mention only Gerard, because, no doubt, they 
wanted to spare the General of the Franciscans. 
Salimbene, on his part, throws all the responsibility 
on Gerard, and displays great zeal in describing 
how the Order punished such errors.! However, 
* viii., 123, 240. 

f ' Roman de la Rose,' line 12,014 and fol. 

% Pp. 103, 203, 236. 



JOACHIM DI FLO'R. 



257 



he cannot deny that John of Parma was a staunch 
Joachimite, and created many difficulties for him- 
self by holding such opinions.* Later, Nicolas 
Eymeric, not having, as a Dominican, the same 
motive for reserve, attributes to John of Parma, 
purely and simply, the list of errors constituting 
the doctrine of the ' Eternal Gospel.' John of 
Parma was doubtless, in one sense, the apostle 
and chief interpreter of the doctrines which sought 
to derive their authority from the name of Abbot 
Joachim. Yet nothing can warrant us in believing 
that John of Parma directly participated in draw- 
ing up a book pursued by so many anathemas. 
As regards Gerard de Borgo San-Donnino, there 
are positive proofs. Fra Salimbene, his colleague, 
his fellow-countryman and friend, accuses him, in 
various instances, of having composed a deplor- 
able book falsifying Joachim's doctrine ;t and he 
relates the dreadful disgrace which befell him 
without relaxing his obstinacy. Affo, who was the 
first to become acquainted with this important 
text, then unpublished, and after him Sbaraglia 
and Tiraboschi, accepted with reason the positive 
statements of Fra Salimbene. 

The result of all this is that we possess, in the 
three chief authentic works of Joachim, the text 
of what was called the ' Eternal Gospel.' As for 
Gerard's notes, they are, in all probability, irre- 
trievably lost, with the exception of the fragments 

Pp. 98, 124, 131 and fol. 

t P. 103 and fol. ; 233 and fol. 

17 



258 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



preserved in the indictment submitted to the 
Anagni Commission. Still less can we ever hope 
to come across the complete text of the ' In- 
troductorium.' The rigour with which heterodox 
books used to be prescribed in the Middle Ages 
explains this disappearance. Several years after 
the sentence of 1255, Salimbene saw a copy of 
Gerard's work on paper, which had been copied 
at Rome by a notary of Imola. The guardian of 
the convent, knowing him to be an old Joachimite, 
came to consult him respecting the value of the 
manuscript. Salimbene took fright, and, perhaps 
fearing some snare, said that the work ought to 
be burned there and then ; which was accordingly 
done.* 

The volume used by Florent having had for its 
principal text a series of extracts from Joachim's 
works, doubts may arise as to whether the com- 
pilation contained in No. 1726 of Sorbonne, from 
folio 1 to folio 78 (the first document above re- 
ferred to), should not be identified with that mys- 
sterious book. But the notes of Friar Gerard, 
as we find them in the acts of the Anagni Com- 
mission, are not to be found in our manuscript. 
We only discover on the margin short scholia, 
indicating the principal ideas of Joachim, and 
especially those chiefly insisted on by Gerard. 
A much more serious difficulty arises from the 
fact that in the extracts held by Florent, the 
three great authentic works of Joachim were 

6 Pp. 235-36 ; compare pp. 234-35. 



JOACHIM DI FLOR. 



259 



alone quoted, whereas in our manuscript the 
apocryphal commentaries on Jeremiah, Ezekiel, 
and the ' De oneribus Provinciarum ' occupy an 
important place. It must be noted that the com- 
pilation contained in our No. 1726 seems some- 
times to have been made according to the fancy 
of the copyist : there are blanks and repetitions.* 
It cannot be identified with the edition cited by 
Gerard. We are of opinion that, among the 
Joachimite writings which have been preserved, 
that which is most similar to Gerard's work is 
the pamphlet beginning ' Helias jam venit,' men- 
tioned above, pp. 230, 231. 

What date can be assigned to the composi- 
tion of the ' Liber introductorius in Evangelium 
seternum ' ? The fourth document above quoted 
furnishes us, on this point, with a precise indi- 
cation. One of the errors found in the ' Liber 
introductorius ' is the statement that the reign of 
the Holy Ghost will begin in six years, in 1260, t 
which brings back the composition of the book 
to the year 1254. This is also the exact date 
assigned by Guillaume de Saint-Amour, I and well 

* Florent doubtless alludes to similar compositions in his 
Council of Aries : ' Plurima super his phantasiis commentaria 
facta descripserunt ' (Labbe, vol. xiv., p. 242). 

+ D'Argentre', p. 164. 1 Quod novum Testamentum non 
durabit in virtute sua nisi per sex annos proxime futuros, 
scilicet usque ad annum incarnationis M.CCLX.' D'Argentrd's 
text wrongly gives 1269. Compare D'Argentre, p. 165, at the 
top ; Salimbene, pp. 123, 223, 231, 240. 

% 1 Jam publice posita fuit ad explicandum Anno Domine 
1254.' (' De peric. noviss. temp.,' Opp., p. 38.) 

17 — 2 



2 6o NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



known to all the learned men who have studied 
the affairs of the University of Paris and the 
Roman Court of that period.* 

By collecting the main facts arrived at in this 
discussion, we draw the following conclusions : 

1. In the opinion of the thirteenth century, the 
' Eternal Gospel ' meant a doctrine (ascribed to 
Abbot Joachim) respecting the arrival of a third 
religious state which was to succeed the Gospel 
of Christ and become the final law of man- 
kind. 

2. This doctrine is imperfectly expressed in the 
authentic works of Abbot Joachim, who contents 
himself with a comparison between the Old and 
the New Testaments, and looks but timidly to the 
future. 

3. The name of the Abbot Joachim was raised 
from obscurity towards the middle of the thir- 
teenth century by the ' exalted ' section of the 
Franciscan school. He was said to have pre- 
dicted the birth of St. Francis and the creation of 
his order ; and to have played a part with regard 
to Francis of Assisi analogous to that of John the 
Baptist with regard to Jesus ; lastly, the doctrine 
attributed to him received the name of the 
' Eternal Gospel.' 

4. This expression did not convey the idea of 
a distinct w r ork to the mind of most of those who 
heard or pronounced it. It was the label of a 



1 Histoire litteraire de la France,' vol. xx., pp. 27-28. 



JO A CHIM DI FL OR. 



doctrine, just as the phrase the ' Three Im- 
postors ' summed up the averroistic scepticism, 
brought about by the study of the Arab philo- 
sophers and the Court of Frederic II. 

5. Yet the title of the ' Eternal Gospel ' used 
to be applied, with a more precise meaning, to 
the collection of the principal works of Joachim. 

6. Distinct from that collection, there was the 
' Introduction to the Eternal Gospel,' a work of 
small dimensions, composed, or at least brought 
to light, by Gerard de Borgo San-Donnino in the 
year 1254. 

7. This ' Introduction ' was the preface to an 
abridged edition of Joachim's works, to which 
was added a commentary by Gerard. These 
two writings, comprised under the compendious 
title of the ' Eternal Gospel,' and transmitted to 
the pope by the Bishop of Paris in the year 1254, 
were the object of the censure of the Commission 
of Anagni in 1255. 

8. The text of the ' Introduction to the Eternal 
Gospel ' seems to have been lost ; but its doctrine 
has been handed down to us in the acts of the 
assembly at Anagni, and in the other sentences 
pronounced against the ' Eternal Gospel ' (MSS. 
of Sorbonne, 1706, 1726 ; Bibliotheque Mazarine, 
391). As for Gerard's notes, some fragments of 
them are still extant in the second Anagni docu- 
ment. , 

An example will best show the relation existing 
between these divers texts ; also how one pro- 



262 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



ceeded from the other by amplification or by in- 
terpolation. 1 In chapter viii. of the " Introduc- 
tion to the Eternal Gospel," ' say the cardinals who 
sat on the Anagni Commission, ' the author 
pretends that, even as at the beginning of the 
first state, there appeared three great men, Abra- 
ham, Isaac, and Jacob, the third of whom, that 
is Jacob, was surrounded by twelve persons (his 
twelve sons) ; and at the beginning of the second 
state there were three great men, Zacharias, John 
the Baptist, and Christ, the Divine Man, who, in 
like manner, had twelve apostles, so again, at 
the beginning of the third state, there shall be 
three great men similar to the first — viz., the 
man clad in linen, the angel holding the sharp 
scythe, and another angel carrying in his hand 
the sign of the living God. The latter shall 
also be followed by twelve angels, in the same 
manner as Jacob had twelve attendants in the 
first state, and Christ had twelve followers in the 
second. By the man clad in linen,' proceed the 
cardinals, 'the author of this writing means Joa- 
chim, as is proved in chapter xxi., towards the 
middle . . . and in chapter xii., where we find 
these w r ords, " To that angel who carried the sign 
of the living God, and who appeared about the 
year 1200 of the Lord's incarnation " — an angel,' 
add the cardinals, ' whom Friar Gerard recognises 
formally as no other than St. Francis.' 

That is a clear, w 7 ell-defined theory, and one 
which could only have been produced towards the 



JOACHIM DI FLOR. 



263 



middle of the thirteenth century by the exalted 
Franciscan school. If we open Joachim's ' Con- 
cordance,' we find, in the second treatise of the 
first book, a parallel between Abraham, Isaac, and 
Jacob on the one hand, and Zachariah, John the 
Baptist, and Jesus on the other, occurring several 
times, though not expressed with so much preci- 
sion; but there is no trace of a future triad destined 
to found a new religious state of mankind, and to 
which Joachim would belong. Generally speak- 
ing, Joachim's views on a third state meant to 
succeed to the New Testament, as that succeeded 
to the Old Testament, are very obscure and 
scarcely indicated.* The definiteness afterwards 
ascribed to his doctrine on this point, his pro- 
phecies respecting the Mendicant Orders, and the 
supplanting of the secular clergy by a religious 
Order which was to go barefoot — in a word, the 
prediction of the ' Eternal Gospel ' — all this was 
the work of the thirteenth-century Joachimites, 
who, finding in the ideas of the Abbot of Flor 
about the parallel between the two Testaments a 
useful basis for their theology, adopted these ideas, 
and added to them the announcement of a third 
revelation, of which Joachim should be the pre- 
cursor, St. Francis the Messiah, and they them- 
selves the apostles. 

Vide, however, ' Concordance,' i., iv., last chapter, and 
epecially i., v., chap, lxxxiv. These passages may be inter- 
polations by Gerard, as also that wherein Joachim expressly 
predicts the Mendicant Orders. 



264 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



VI. 

THE DOCTRINE OF THE 'ETERNAL GOSPEL.' 

The account of Fra Salimbene is therefore con- 
firmed on all points by the study of the documents. 
The doctrine of the ' Eternal Gospel ' flourished 
publicly in the Order of St. Francis, under the 
generalship and with the more or less open pro- 
tection of John of Parma ; but he himself never 
wrote anything under that title. The author of 
the condemned book was Gerard de Borgo San- 
Donnino. But neither Gerard nor John of Parma 
were the inventors of the system which startled 
Christendom in 1254. Long before this Joachim- 
ism had taken root among the ardent disciples of 
St. Francis. Salimbene relates* that, about the 
year 1240, an aged and holy abbot, of the Order of 
Flor, came to Pisa to request a religious Order 
there to take charge of the books of Joachim 
possessed by his convent. This convent was 
situate between Lucca and Pisa, and he was afraid, 
as he said, lest it should be ransacked by Fred- 
erick II. The best theologians of the Pisan convent 
began to read the books brought by the old abbot ; 
they were struck by the coincidences between 
Joachim's prophecies and the events of the time, 
and, putting theology aside, they became ardent 
Joachimites. It may not be rash to suppose 
the books thus mysteriously entrusted to the 
P. 101. 



JOACHIM DI FLOR. 



265 



Pisan Franciscans to have been Joachim's 
apocryphal writings — such as, for instance, the 
' Commentary on Jeremiah,' composed about that 
period.* Enthusiasm does not understand ve- 
racity in the same way as vulgar common-sense ; 
it does not think itself bound to submit to those 
scrupulous rules of literary probity which are 
proper to periods of criticism and reflection. 
Convinced of the higher truth of his personal 
inspiration, a prophet does not hesitate to call to 
his aid what sober-minded men would denounce 
as fraud and imposture. 

Nearly forty years had elapsed since the death 
of the Abbot of Flor ; his books, concealed in the 
cells of a few monks,t were known to only a small 
number of adherents ; his person was surrounded 
by a legendary halo, his character of prophet was 
already universally accepted, and the existing belief 
in his having received special inspiration from the 
Holy Ghost for predicting the destinies of the 
Church, made him an excellent patron for the doc- 
trine about to be established, and the germs of 
which actually existed in his writings. They put 
the patriarch of Flor in connection with the new 
movement ; he was made to predict the apparition 

The adversaries of the Joachimites, seeming to have 
doubts as to the authenticity of these writings, call them 
'prophetias hominum fantasticorum.'— Salimbene, p. 131. 

t . . . 4 Libri joachitici, qui a majoribus nostris usque ad 
haec tempora remanserunt intacti, utpote latitantes apud 
quosdam religiosos in angulis et antris, doctoribus indis- 
cussi.' — Council of Aries, Labbe, vol. xiv., col. 241. 



266 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



of two religious Orders destined to change the face 
of Christendom.* His legend was based upon 
that of St. Francis. The great authority of the 
latter proceeded from the stigmata which assimi- 
lated him to Christ: Joachim also exhibited 
stigmata. Like Francis, he used to go about bare- 
foot ; like him, he included Nature and the ani- 
mal world in a universal love. Joachim became 
thus sometimes the precursor of Francis of Assisi, 
sometimes the founder of a new faith, superior to 
that of the Catholic Church, destined to replace 
it and to last for ever. He himself was said to 
have had a precursor in the person of a certain 
Cyril, a hermit of Mount Carmel, a prophet like 
himself, and whose oracles were equally bold and 
far-seeing. His writings, whether genuine or 
apocryphal, were a sort of revelation in the eyes 
of the lower clergy. Being much less under the 
bondage of scholastic theology than the Domini- 
cans, sometimes, indeed, being scarcely Chris- 
tians, the Franciscans displayed in mystical 
speculation, and also in science and poetry, a 

* Salimbene, pp. 118, 123, 124, 338, 389, 403. A'tradition, 
highly credited among the chroniclers of Mendicant Orders, 
even pretended that Joachim caused St. Francis and St. 
Dominique to be painted in the Church of St. Mark in Venice, 
in the costume since "accepted and preserved by Christian 
iconography. The idea that in the mosaics of St. Mark, 
representing scenes taken from the Apocalypse, we 
have a representation of Joachim's ideas is scarcely less 
improbable. Strange to say, the Jesuits also at a later date 
pretended to have been predicted by Joachim. Vide 'Acta 
SS. Maii,' vol. vii., pp. 141, 142. 



JOACHIM DI FLOR. 



267 



freedom of thought which one would vainly seek 
in the Middle Ages outside that body. 

Except by reading Fra Salimbene's curious 
work, it would be impossible to imagine to what 
extent Joachimite ideas had penetrated the Order, 
and how they had stimulaed mental activity. A 
holy man from Provence, Hugues de Digne, who 
preached before St. Louis, was the oracle of 
the sect ; people flocked from all parts to his cell 
at Hyeres, to listen to the terrors and the hopes 
contained in the new Apocalypse.* He possessed 
all Joachim's works written in large characters. 
He was generally looked upon as a prophet, and 
he was the father of a sort of third Order of roving 
mendicants, who went by the name of Saccati 
or Boscarioli. Hugues was the intimate friend of 
John of Parma, and perhaps his initiator in these 
dangerous novelties. Salimbene paid him frequent 
visits, and speaks of him as having been inspired. 
His sister, St. Douceline, was the foundress of 
the Beguines of Marseilles, and traces of the trials 
brought upon her by her relations with John of 
Parma and the leaders of the Franciscan move- 
ment are still discernible under the truly edifying 
tone of her Provencal biography.f 

* Salimbene, pp. 98 et seq., 124, 141-42, 148, 319, 320. 
Compare ' Histoire litteraire de la France/ xxi., p. 293 ; 
Albanes' ' Vie de Sainte Douceline,' p. xlvii. and fob 

t The ' Vie de Sainte Douceline,' published by M. l'Abbe 
Albanes (Marseilles, 1879), PP- x lbc., 35* 37? 99? Ir 5> I 37t I S5- 
M. Paul Meyer was the first to notice the importance of this 
document in the history of the Franciscan movement. — ' Les 
derniers Troubadours de la Provence' (1871), p. 19. 



268 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



The fever of Joachimism seized upon the loftiest 
minds. One of the leading men of his time, 
Adam of Marsh, the friend of Roger Bacon, in the 
heart of England, gladly received from Italy the 
smallest fragments of the works of the Abbot of 
Flor, which he used to forward at once to his 
friend Robert Grossetete, Bishop of Lincoln,* call- 
ing his special attention to the menaces they con- 
tained respecting the vices of the clergy. Rapidly 
spreading from convent to convent, along the banks 
of the Rhone and the Saone, Joachimism reached 
Champagne, where it quickly found adherents. 
It was at Provins that Salimbene met with 
Bartholomew Ghiscolo, of Parma, and Gerard de 
Borgo San-Donnino, the two leaders of the sect.i* 
As a rule, all these Joachimites were true saints, 
though very independent believers, attaching to 
their own ideas and to their master's writings as 
much importance as to the teachings of the Church 
and the authority of the Bible. 

The general of the Order, John of Parma, 
avowedly shared in these chimeras ;J several of 
the affiliated members ascribed to him a place 
among the angelic precursors of the new Gospel \% 

° ' Paucas particulas de variis expositionibus abbatis 
Joachim, quae ante dies aliquot per quemdam fratrem veni- 
entem de partibus transmontanis mihi sunt allatae,' in the 
' Monumenta franciscana,' published by J. S. Brewer (London, 
1858), pp. 146, 147. Compare Salimbene, p. 99. 

t Salimbene, pp. 101 et seq., 318. 

t I bi d., pp. 124, 131-33. 

§ Vide above, p. 256. 



JOACHIM DI FLO J?. 



269 



they even wanted him to have twelve companions 
like St. Francis.* But the most exalted of 
Joachimites was friar Gerard de Borgo San Don- 
nino. He had been educated in the kingdom of 
Sicily ; he was still a young man, brought up in 
accordance with the fashion of the time, of 
amiable character, and pure manners. t As early 
as 1248, we find him in the convent at Provins, 
plunged in the study of Joachim's writings, 
striving to secure proselytes, and already disturb- 
ing the whole house with his sombre prophecies. 
Ghiscolo and Salimbene took his part, but the friars 
of France opposed him actively. About the year 
1249 the little Joachimite community of Provins 
was dissolved. Ghiscolo was sent to Sens, Salim- 
bene to Autun, Gerard to Paris, to represent the 
province of Sicily in the University. He studied 
there four years : during that time his ideas 
became still more lofty, and in 1254 ne published 
a book which produced a great scandal. N umerous 
prophecies already pointed to 1260 as the critical 
year of the Christian world. Gerard boldly pre- 
dicted that the inauguration of the new era was 
to take place in that year. Some misinterpreted 
passages from the Apocalypse (xi. 3, xii. 6, xx. 3 
and 7) were supposed to give foundation to his 
strange calculations. In truth, all the dreams of 
the new millenarians were derived, by an exegesis 
arbitrary indeed, but in unison with the spirit of 

Salimbene, pp. 317-19. 

t Ibid., pp. 102 and fol., 233 and fol. 



27o NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



the time, from the great source of Christian hope, 
the book written at Patmos. 

In chapter sixteen of that mysterious book 
we read: 'I saw another angel fly in the midst of 
heaven, having the everlasting (eternal) gospel to 
preach unto them that sit upon the earth, and to 
every nation and kindred and tongue and people,' 
(Rev. xiv. 6, authorized version). Mediaeval 
imagination could not ignore that text : it was 
compared with the Sibylline oracles, which were 
accepted by the tradition of the fathers of the 
Church, and which, themselves the result of the 
effervescence of the millenarian sects of antiquity, 
contained lofty aspirations. The corruption of 
the Church, so remote from the predictions of 
the Gospel, compelled the conception of some 
imaginary state in which the perfection so often 
promised would at last be realized. 

'The Father reigned 4000 years in the Old Testament, 
said the preachers of the new faith ;° the Son reigned down 
to the year 1200 ; then it was that the spirit of life departed 
from the two Testaments to establish the Eternal Gospel; the 
year 1260 shall witness the beginning of the era of the Holy 
Ghost. The reign of the laity, corresponding with that of 
the Father, lasted as long as the ancient law ; the reign of 
the secular clergy, corresponding with that of the Son, co- 

D'Argentre, op. cit., p. 163 and fol. D'Argentre' omitted 
the following passage : ' Item in iii. capitulo, circa medium, 
dicitur : " Opera quae fecit Deus trinitas ab initio usque nunc 
sunt opera Patris"'(MS. 1706 reads 1 Trinitatis ') ' " tantum," 
et post pauca : " Et illud tempus in quod operatus est Deus 
Pater est principium temporis Patris, et potest dici primus 
status mundi, etc"' ' 



JO A CHIM DI FLOR. 



271 



existed with the new law ; in the third age an order shall 
reign composed in equal numbers of laymen and clerics,* and 
specially dedicated to the Holy Ghost. New sacerdotal 
rules shall take the place of the old ones ; no one will then be 
allowed to teach or become a priest without going barefoot. f 
The sacraments of the new law have but six years longer 
to last.J 

'Jesus Christ and His apostles did not attain their perfec- 
tion in a contemplative life. An active life used to confer 
sanctity until Joachim's time ; now active life has become 
useless ; it is contemplative life, whose rule is observed by 
the successors of Joachim, which justifies. Hence it follows 
that the clerical order shall perish, and its place shall be 
taken by a third order more perfect, that of the monks, 
announced by the Psalmist, where he says : " Capital ropes 
have been assigned to me." § That order shall become strong 
when the clerical order shall decay. It shall be the order 
of the humble. || In the first age of the world, the direction 
of the Church was entrusted by the Father to certain great 
men who were married, and it is this which gives sanction to 
that class. In the second age of the world, power was con- 



This was one of the peculiarities of the Order of St. 
Francis, which admitted laymen in its brotherhood. 

f D'Argentre printed, in mistake, indefteiidentium instead 
of nudipedmn. He left out the indication of the censured 
passages, five in number. We read in the fourth document : 
' Quod nullus est simpliciter idoneus, etc., nisi ill! qui nudis 
pedibus incedunt.' D'Argentre' puts here 'idoneus Evan- 
gelio.' Nicolas Eymeric has : ' Quod nullus simplex homo 
est idoneus ad instruendum hominem alium de spiritualibus 
et seternis, nisi . . . .' 

+ ' Quod sacramenta novas legis non durabunt a modo nisi 
per sex annos.'— Preger, p. 36. 

§ I need not point out to Hebrew scholars the curious 
misinterpretation here. 

|| ' Ordo parvulorum,' an allusion to the name of the Fratres 
Minores. Cf. Salimbene, p. 122. 



272 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



ferred by the Son on certain members of the clerical order, 
and this makes the glory of that order. In the third age, the 
Holy Ghost shall cause one or more of the order of monks to 
reign, and that order shall thus be glorified. When the 
preachers of that order shall be persecuted by the clergy, 
they may go to the infidels, and it is to be feared,' it is added, 
' that they will go among them only in order to lead them to 
battle against the Roman Church. 

' Discernment of the spiritual meaning of the Scriptures 
has not been bestowed on the pope ; he can only discern the 
literal meaning. If he ventures to decide upon the spiritual 
meaning, his judgment is rash, and no account should be 
taken of it. Spiritual men are not called upon to obey the 
Roman Church, or to acquiesce in its judgment concerning 
spiritual things. 

' The Greeks have done well to sever the ties which bound 
them to the Roman Church ; they follow the dictates of the 
spirit more closely than the Latins, and are nearer to salva- 
tion, f The Holy Ghost saves the Greeks, the Son redeems 
the Latins, the eternal Father watches over the Jews, and 
will save them from the hatred of men, without ordaining 
that they shall forsake Judaism.}: 

'The Old Testament, the work of the time when the 
Father reigned, may be compared to the newly-created sky, 
or to the light of stars ; the New Testament, the work of the 
time when the Son reigned, may be compared to the second 
heaven, or to the rays of the moon ; the " Eternal Gospel," 
the work of the time when the Holy Ghost shall reign, may be 
compared to the radiance of the sun.§ The Old Testament 

° ' Quod praedicatores et doctores religiosi, quando infesta- 
buntur a clericis, transibant ad infideles ; et timendum est ne 
ad hoc transeunt ut congregent eos in praelium contra roma- 
nam ecclesiam, juxta doctrinam beati Joannis, Apoc, xvi.' 

f ' Ouod papa graecus ' (Nicolas Eymeric, 'populus graecus') 
' magis ambulat secundum Evangelium ' (Meyenberg, ' Spirit- 
urn'). The Magdeburg centuriators have also, ' Papa graecus.' 

\ D'Argentre, p. 165 ; instead of infime, read in fine. 

§ D'Argentre makes another mistake in this passage. We 



JOACHIM DI FLOR. 



273 



represents the vestibule ;° the New Testament represents 
the holy place ; the " Eternal Gospel " represents the holy of 
holies. The first was the age of law and fear ; the second, 
the age of grace and faith ; the third will be the age of love. 
The first was the period of slavery ; the second the period of 
filial servitude ; the third will be the period of liberty. The 
first was a starry night ; the second was the dawn ; the third 
will be broad daylight. The first was the image of winter; 
the second that of spring ; the third will be that of summer. 
The first was the shell ; the second the stone ; the third will 
be the kernel. The first bore nettles ; the second roses ; the 
third will bear lilies. The first is represented by water ; the 
second by wine ; the third by oil : or else, the first by 
earth ; the second by water ; the third by fire. Septua- 
gesima represents the first ; Lent the second ; Easter joy the 
third.f The Gospel of Christ is of the letter ; the Eternal 
Gospel will be of the Spirit, and will deserve to be called the 
Gospel of the Holy Ghost. Christ's Gospel has been enig- 
matical, the new Gospel shall be free from parables and 
images ; as St. Paul said : " We now see as in a glass darkly, 
but then (that is, in the third state of mankind) shall we see 
face to face."^ The truth of both Testaments shall be un- 
veiled ; the Holy Scriptures shall be divided into three parts, 
the Old Testament, the New Testament, and the Gospel, 



must read :'.... comparat vetus Testamentum primo 
ccelo, Evangelium Christi secundo ccelo, Evangelium 
asternum tertio ccelo.' 

* Atrio. D'Argenti'd gives wrongly Sanctuario, accord- 
ing to No. 1706. 

t Vide ' Concordance/ iv., cap. lxxxiv. I'suppose many of 
Gerard's interpolations found their way into this part of 
Joachim's text. 

% This passage is wrongly given by D'Argentre : ' Item, x. 
capitulo, D, dicit quod tertius status mundi, qui est proprius 
Spiritus Sancti, erit sine aenigmate et sine figuris ; unde, 
circa medium ejusdem capituli, ponit haec verba : " Apos- 
tolus, 1 Cor. xiii., loquens de fide et caritate, distinguendo 

18 



274 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



this last word meaning the " Eternal Gospel."* The latter 
shall be as binding for the men of the third state, as the Old 
Testament was for the men of the first state, or the New 
Testament for the men of the second state, — although this 
truth/ it is added, ' may displease the men of the present 
generation.' 

'Three great men presided over the inauguration of the 
Old Testament : Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the latter at- 
tended by twelve persons (the twelve patriarchs). Three 
great men presided over the advent of the New Testament : 
Zachariah, John the Baptist, and Christ, followed by his 
twelve Apostles. In like manner, three great men shall 
preside over the foundation of the third state, which will be 
that of the monks: the man clad in linen (Joachim), the angel 



statum fidei, scilicet secundum statum mundi, qui asnigmati- 
cus est, a statu caritatis, qui proprius Spiritus Sancti est et 
est sine asnigmate, liguravit duorum Testamentorum [differ- 
entiam], ut patet alibi, quia comparando unum ad aliud 
die it : Ex parte cognoscimus et ex parte prophetamus^ et 
hoc quantum ad secundum statum ; quutn antem venerit 
quod perfect urn est, scilicet tempus caritatis, quod est tertius 
status mundi, evacuabztur quod ex parte est, quasi dicat : Tunc 
cessabunt omnes figurae, et Veritas duorum Testamentorum 
sine velamine apparebit ; et statim subdit : Videmus nunc 
per speculum" etc' 

° D'Argentre omitted nearly all this passage : ' Item, 
xxviii., capitulo, A, dicit Sacram Scripturam divisam in 
tres partes, scilicet in vetus Testamentum et Novum et 
Evangelium, quod capitulum totum est notabile, et totum 
legatur. Idem expresse habetur xxx. capitulo, ubi dicit : 
" Hsec tria sacra volumina ;" et eodem capitulo, D, dicit : 
"Alia est Scriptura divina quae data est fidelibus eo tempore 
quo Deus Pater dictus est operari, et alia quae data est 
christianis eo tempore quo Deus Alius operari dictus est, 
et alia quae nobis data " ' (D'Argentrd, ' danda ') ' " est eo tem- 
pore quo Spiritus Sanctus proprietate mysterii operatur " ' 
(D'Argentre : " Mysterii Trinitatis operabitur "). 



* 



JOACHIM DI FLO J?. 



275 



carrying the sharpened scythe (St. Dominique * ?), and the 
angel bearing the sign of the living God (St. Francis), by 
whom God renewed apostolic life, and who, like Christ, had 
twelve apostles. The year 1200 has thus been that of the 
advent of new men, the year in which the Gospel of Christ 
lost its pre-eminence. 

' Joachim's doctrine supersedes both Testaments. Christ's 
Gospel has not been the true gospel of the kingdom ; it has not 
succeeded in building the true Church ;f it has never led any- 
one to perfection.^ Now will begin the reign of the " Eternal 
Gospel," which, announced by the advent of Elias, is about 
to be preached to all nations. The preachers of that new 
Gospel shall be superior to those of the primitive Church. 
As the solemn day shall draw near, those who preside over the 
Order of Monks must withdraw themselves more and more 
from the world, and prepare to rejoin the Jews, the ancient 
people. The triumph of the Order of the Monks, 5 it is 
vaguely added, 'will be achieved by one man, or by several 
men who shall be its representatives, and whose glory shall 
be that of the Order itself. A man shall appear among 
religious orders who shall be preferred to all others in 
honours and glory. This triumph shall be preceded by the 
reign of abomination, that is, the reign of a simoniacal false 
pope, who shall occupy the pontifical seat towards the close 
of the sixth age of the world. " This tribulation," said Friar 
Ge'rard, " will be such as nothing ever approached before, 
and it shall affect temporal as well as spiritual things. It 
shall come to pass about the year 1260. Then shall Anti- 
Christ appear, and, after a short interval of peace, a still 



This interpretation is not given in the manuscripts, no 
doubt because the Dominican censors would not have been 
pleased to see the name of their patriarch mixed up with 
these dangerous doctrines. 

f ' Nec aedificatorium ecclesise,' and not ' Nec aedifi- 
catio,' as D'Argentre has it. 

% ' Quod Evangelium Christi neminem ducit ad perfec- 
tionem,' omitted by D'Argentre'. 

18—2 



276 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



worse tribulation shall begin. This will be only spiritual, 
and consequently more dangerous." ' 

The foregoing passages were followed by calcu- 
lations borrowed from Joachim, and relating to 
the genealogies of the Old Testament considered 
as prophetic,- and by a series of predictions in 
^ which the author freely vented his hatred against 
the Church of Rome and the powers of the time. 
All the prophets were summoned to announce the 
imminent substitution of a poor and monastic 
clergy for the official Church, the early coming of 
Antichrist, and the abomination of desolation 
sitting in the holy place ; that is, the advent of a 
worldly pope, who would bring into churches his 
minions and his horses — in short, the imminent 
ruin of that proud Babylon which gorged herself 
with the tributes of the whole world, and perse- 
cuted just men when they rebuked her for her 
impieties. It was reported that Joachim, when 
questioned by Richard Cceur de Lion about Anti- 
christ, replied that he was already born in Rome, 
and that he would reign there, in order, as says 
the Apostle, to raise himself higher even than 
God.t Others asserted that Joachim disapproved 

° ' Primus est error enumerandi carnales genealogias,' and 
not ' annates,' as D Argentrd has it. We must then read 
as follows : ' Secundus est studium noscendi momenta et 
tempora eorum quae venient vel venerunt in secundo statu 
mundi per ea quae venerunt in primo statu mundi. . / 

f Roger de Hoveden, apud Savile, ' Rer. angl. script.,' 
pp. 681-82. A similar reply is reported to have been made 
by Joachim to Adam de Perseigne. Vide ' Acta SS. Maii,' 



JOACHIM DI FLOR. 



277 



of the Crusades, because even infidels were less 
opposed to the ' Eternal Gospel' than the Latins.* 
Whenever people expressed irritation at these 
sayings, he is said to have retorted : ' Those 
who hate the kingdom of heaven do not wish the 
kingdom of the world to perish ; those who do 
not love Jerusalem do not desire the downfall of 
Egypt. 't The strongest images in the Scriptures 
were invoked to depict the chastisement of mer- 
cenary prelates and the vengeance of the saints. 
The abuses of the wealth and the temporal power 
of the Church were attacked with a virulence 
scarcely known to the most passionate period of 
the Reformation. 

Such were the strange visions which agitated a 
few monks, and which, in 1254, dared to show 
themselves in open day. I do not know if I 
mistake the real bearing of these productions ; 
but, considering the persistence with which, under 
one form or another, such ideas broke forth for 
more than a century, always from within the 
Franciscan community ; seeing how closely they 
were connected with the heresies, the popular out- 
breaks, the political revolutions of the time ; con- 
sidering that ardent enthusiasts used to declare 

vol. vii., pp. 138-39; Hamdau, ' Histoire litteraire du Maine, 5 
i., pp. 29-33. 

* J. Wolf, ' Centenarii,' p. 197. It is remarkable that in 
1248 the Joachimites displayed little satisfaction at St. 
Louis's departure for the Crusade. — Salimbene, p. 102. 

f Salimbene, p. 103. 



278 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



openly that the schismatical Greeks, the Jews, 
the infidels themselves, among whom they hoped 
to meet with less opposition, were better than 
the Latin Church over which they despaired of 
triumphing, I do not think there is any exaggera- 
tion in saying that they contained the germs of 
an abortive attempt to create a religion. A little 
more, and the thirteenth century, so extraordinary 
in many respects, might have witnessed the rise 
of a new religion, of which the Order of St. 
Francis contained the germ. Had the fanatics 
of the new Order been able to achieve their end, 
the world would have become Franciscan instead 
of Christian.* We shall now see how the attempt 
was crushed under the scholastic rigour of the 
Gallican Church, the firmness of the Court of 
Rome, the common-sense of a lay society which 
had just come to life, and above all the impractica- 
bility of its own schemes. Paris, where the new 
gospel elected to be born, was, of all places in the 
world, least favourable to its progress. Those 
dreams of perfection, those vague aspirations 
towards an ideal and superhuman state, broke 
down before the practical turn of the French mind. 

:: Such was certainly the opinion of Guillaume de Saint- 
Amour : ' Jam sunt 55 anni quod aliqui laborant ad mutan- 
dum Evangelium Christi in aliud Evangelium, quod dicunt 
fore perfectius, melius et dignius, quod appellant Evangelium 
Spiritus Sancti, sive Evangelium asternum, quo adveniente, 
evacuabitur, ut dicunt, Evangelium Christi.' — ' De periculis 
novissimorum temporum,' p. 38. (Opera, Constantise [Pari- 
siis], 1632.) 



JOACHIM DI FLOR. 



279 



It is surprising with what clearness the chief re- 
presentatives of the Paris University of that time, 
staunch adversaries of religious mendicity — Guil- 
laume de Saint-Amour and Gerard d'Abbeville — 
foresaw the social bearing of the new monastic 
institutions.* Churchmen who did not share 
the exaggerated views of the Franciscans, and 
especially the Dominicans, who were their most 
steadfast adversaries, f might well complain of the 
affectation of confounding the doctrine of con- 
ventual poverty with that of the 1 Eternal Gospel.' 
St. Thomas Aquinas condemned the ideas of the 
Joachimite school almost as severely as Guillaume 
de Saint-Amour; and Guillaume de Tocco, his 
biographer, relates that, having found in a monas- 
tery the works of the Abbot of Flor, he read them 
through, underlined all that he considered erro- 
neous, and imperiously ordered that all that his in- 
fallible authority had thus cancelled should be 
neither read nor believed .$ 

No doubt in the heat of the struggle, at a time 
when every weapon was good with which one's 
adversaries might be attacked, the University 
looked upon the ' Eternal Gospel ' as a fair pretext 

* Vide M. Daunou's article on John of Parma (' Hist, 
litteraire de la France,' vol. xx.), and especially that of M. 
Victor Le Clerc on Guillaume de Saint-Amour and Gerard 
d Abbeville {Ibid., vol. xxi.). 

t Salimbene, pp. 104-108. 

% 1 Ubi aliquid erroneum reperit vel suspectum, cum linea 
subducta damnavit, quia totum legi et credi prohibuit quod 
ipse sua docta manu cassavit.'— ' Acta SS. Martii,' vol. i.. p. 667. 



-So NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



for casting a slur upon the monks, just as they 
themselves used to reproach the University with 
Averroism and the blasphemy of the Trois Impos- 
tcurs. Religious disputants seldom refrain from 
the disloyal practice of employing against a doc- 
trine the exaggerations of which it maybe capable. 
This time, however, the calumny was not without 
foundation. The abuse of logic, and the autho- 
rity ascribed to Arabic comments, gave a certain 
colour to the accusations against the University. 
Between the 'Eternal Gospel' and the doctrine 
of religious poverty there existed, on the other 
hand, a real affinity, which the doctors of the 
University promptly detected. Mendicity had 
become the pretext for the strangest doctrines. 
Guillaume de Saint-Amour was constantly lectur- 
ing against the ' truands,' the ' bons-valets,' and 
other sects of mendicants, who used to say that 
' manual labour is a crime ; that we should always 
pray; that the earth becomes more fruitful by 
prayer than by work.' The Bishop of Paris, 
wishing to give the University the satisfaction of 
seeing a monk convicted of the gravest errors, 
referred the ' Introduction to the Gospel' to Pope 
Alexander IV., who appointed the commission 
of three cardinals, which we have already seen 
at work. In the month of July, 1255, was pro- 
nounced the judgment, whose preliminary reports 
are still preserved. 

This was a satisfaction given to the University 
by the papacy, faithful to its rule of sacrificing 



JOACHIM DI FLOR. 



281 



extremes to each other, but, out of consideration 
for the Order at which that sentence seemed to 
strike, the pope gave instructions that the con- 
demned book should be secretly burnt at Anagni, 
whereas the sentence pronounced in the following 
year against the ' De periculis novissimorum tem- 
porum ' of Guillaume de Saint-Amour was carried 
out with the greatest publicity.* The worthy 
Gallican Church was none the less proud of having 
stopped the advance of an erroneous doctrine, 
and preserved Christianity from a great danger. 
The artless satisfaction of the University in its 
victory is shown in the following bad verses, by 
Jean de Meung, the University poet : 

1 Et se ne fut la bonne garde 
De FUniversite' qui garde 
Le Chief de la Crestiente', 
Tout eust 6t6 bien tourmente 
Ouand, par maulvaise intention, 
En Pan de 1' Incarnation 
Mille et deux cents cinq et cinquante, « 
N'est horns vivant qui m'en demente, 
Fu bailie*, et c'est chose voire, 
Pour prendre commun exemploire 
Ung livre de par le grant diable 
Dit I'Evangile pardurable, 
Que le Saint Esperit menistre 
Si com il aparoit au tistre . . . 



Matthieu Paris, loc. cit. Fabricius points out that the 
sentence condemning the ' Everlasting Gospel 'is not even 
mentioned in the Bullary, whereas the verdict concerning 
the ' De Periculis' is reported fully in it (' Codex apocryphus 
N. T.,' 2nd edition, vol. i., pp. 337-38). 



282 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



A Paris, n'eut home ne feme 

Au parvis devant Nostre-Dame 

Qui lors avoir ne le p<5ust 

A transcrire, s'il li pldust . . . 

L'Universite', qui lors iere 

Endormie, leva la chiere, 

Du bruit du livre s'esveilla, 

Ains s'arma pour aller encontre, 

Ouand el vit cet horrible monstre . . . 

Mais cil qui lk le livre mirent 

Saillirent sus et le reprirent. . 

The blow dealt at the 1 Gospel' could not fail to 
reach the apostles of the new doctrine. Though 
John of Parma had the wisdom to keep in the 
background, and to avoid the exaggerations of his 
own partisans, his zeal for the observance of the 
rule, his severity towards lukewarm members, 
created for him numerous enemies, who seized 
that opportunity for his overthrow. A general 
chapter, held at the Ara Cceli in February, 1257, 
raised the gravest charges against him ; they 
accused him of preferring Joachim's doctrine to 
the Catholic faith, and of numbering among his 
intimate friends Leonard and Gerard, both of 
them declared Joachimists. He was compelled to 
resign the generalship. An intermediate party was 
formed between the lax portion of the Order and 
the rigorists : orthodoxy and a decorous mysticism 
carried the day in the person of St. Bonaventura. 

Vide 'Roman de la Rose,' line 11994 and fol., of 
Moon's edition. Also ' Historiens de la France/ vol. xxi., pp. 
78, 119-20, 698, 768 ; P. Paris, ' Chronique de Saint Denis,' 
vol. iv., p. 374 ; ' Ancilloniana/ 1698, i., pp. 1 17-18. 



JOACHIM DI FLOR. 



283 



The first step of the new general was to bring 
to trial his predecessor and his two associates, 
Leonard and Gerard. These two monks were 
sentenced to be put in irons, and to eat the bread of 
tribulation and drink the water of anguish ; that is 
to say, to all the horrors of a subterranean prison, 
in which no one was allowed to visit them. 
Gerard died there without ever renouncing his 
hopes.* He was refused the rites of the Church ; 
his bones were interred in the part of the garden 
used as an ashpit. 

As to John, the sympathies which his noble 
character had won for him and the personal friend- 
ship of the new general softened his fall. He was 
allowed to choose his retreat, and fixed upon the 
small convent of Greccia, near Rieti. There he 
lived for thirty-two years in complete seclusion. 
He maintained his Joachimite opinions undis- 
turbed. Two popes even thought, it is said, of 
making him a cardinal; the highest personages 
of the court of Rome were eager to be taught by 
him.t Towards 1289 he re-entered active life for 
a short time ; his intention was to return to the 
Greeks, for whose reconciliation with the Church 
of Rome he had laboured in his youth. He fell 
ill at Camerino, where he died. His legend began 

* Salimbene, pp. 102, 133, 233. According to another 
version, GeVard was set free by St. Bonaventura eighteen 
years afterwards, and Leonard died in prison. Fleury's 
1 Hist, eccles./ book lxxxiv., No. 27. Salimbene does not 
mention Leonard's fate. 

f Salimbene, pp. 131, 133, 317. 



284 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



in his lifetime ; it was modelled, point by point, 
on that of St. Francis of Assisi.* Miracles were 
worked at his tomb ; his party was even powerful 
enough to obtain his canonization. 

His Joachimite friends, with the exception of 
Gerard, all ended their lives as saints. On his 
deathbed, Ghiscolo had such wonderful visions 
that all the brothers who were present marvelled. t 
The good Salimbene continued to lead the un- 
fettered life of a spiritual vagabond, sometimes 
lamenting the errors of his youth and deploring 
the injury done to the Order by John and Gerard, 
sometimes avowing with a certain pleasure that 
he himself had been a Joachimite, and that he 
never before or since knew such pious and amiable 
men. J The heroes of this singular movement 
being all very young, the expression ' Eternal 
Gospel ' died out long before them. Since 1256 
it has disappeared from history, in which it only 
figured for a year or two. Its fate was like that of 
some ephemeral party banner, raised in a critical 
epoch to represent for a moment a cause destined 
to take very different forms in the future. 

Salimbene, pp. 137-38. As regards the twelve com- 
panions, see pp. 317-19. See also the ' Vie de Sainte Douce- 
line/ p. 136 and fol. (edition Albanes). 

t Salimbene, pp. 101, 318. 

t Ibid -> PP- io2 > io 3> 122, 129, 130, 131, 141, 148, 227, 
233, 235, 236. 



JOACHIM DI FLOR. 



285 



VII. 

THE CHEQUERED FORTUNES OF THE DOCTRINE 
OF THE ' ETERNAL GOSPEL.' 

At the present time nearly all the world is agreed 
as to the great divisions of the intellectual history 
of the Middle Ages. Far from casting a uniform 
shadow, as people often fancy it did, the long 
night which extends from the downfall of antique 
civilization to the birth of modern civilization 
displays to an attentive eye the clear lines of an 
intelligible design. The night really only lasted 
until the eleventh century. Then came a re- 
naissance in philosophy, in poetry, in politics, 
in art. This renaissance, which dawned in 
France, culminated in the first half of the thir- 
teenth century, and then stopped. Fanaticism, the 
narrow spirit of scholasticism, the atrocities of the 
Dominican inquisition, the pedantry of the Uni- 
versity of Paris, the incapacity of most contem- 
porary sovereigns, brought about a complete de- 
cadence. In all Europe, except Italy, the four- 
teenth and fifteenth centuries were stagnant 
periods, during which thought existed no longer, 
literature was dead, art was dying, and poetry 
was mute. New fire, however, smouldered in the 
bosom of Italy. The real renaissance was being 
prepared ; Italy did a second time for mankind 
what Greece had done the first time ; she re- 
established the laws of truth and beauty; she 



286 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



became mistress in all arts and sciences, the 
teacher of the human race. 

There is no great age without its great religious 
movement. The renaissance of the twelfth and 
thirteenth centuries had its attempts at reform. 
It surprises those who closely study mediaeval 
history that Protestantism did not arise three 
centuries earlier. All the causes of a religious 
revolution existed in the thirteenth century, but all 
were suppressed. There happened in the thir- 
teenth century what might have happened in the 
sixteenth if Luther had been burnt, if Charles V. 
had exterminated the Protestants, if the Inqui- 
sition had succeeded throughout Europe as it 
succeeded in Spain and Italy. Aspirations towards 
a spiritual church and a purer worship arose on all 
sides. The ' Eternal Gospel' was only one among 
many other attempts to substitute a new religious 
and social order for that founded on the authority 
of the Established Church. 

Just as the Italian renaissance felt the influence 
of the Greek world, so, in many respects, the 
religious movements of the thirteenth century had 
their origin in the Eastern Church. I have no 
4 doubt that the ' Eternal Gospel ' may be traced to 
the Greek Church. Throughout the whole of his 
career Abbot Joachim was in close intercourse 
with Greece. Calabria, where he lived, and where 
his school handed down an almost unbroken 
tradition, was half Greek. His chief disciples, 
the writers of his legend, the prophetic personages 



JOACHIM DI FLOR. 



287 



with whom he was connected, were all Greeks.* 
He himself visited Greece many times, in order, as 
the saying then was, to promote the reunion of the 
two Churches. This reconciliation was the chief 
object of all his followers. John of Parma spent 
several years with the Greeks, and at the close of 
his life wished to go and die amongst them.t All 
the school of the ' Eternal Gospel,' from Joachim 
to Telesphorus of Cosenza, at the end of the 
fourteenth century, proclaimed with one voice that 
the Eastern Church was superior to the Latin 
Church ; that it was better prepared for the 
reformation about to take place, and that, with 
the aid of the Greeks, reform would triumph in 
the worldly Church of the Latins — reform which 
would only be a return to the Spiritual Church 
of the Greeks. Greece was the refuge of the 
fraticelli expelled from Italy by Pope Boniface VIII. 
At that time Greece appears to have been the 
promised land of all reformers. 1 Perhaps,' says 
Fleury, 'they had been struck by some edifying 
remains of ancient discipline which they saw there 
— especially with the frugality and poverty of the 
bishops, so different from the pomp and grandeur 
of the Latin bishops of that time. 'J 

When we remember that Greece was the hot- 
bed of Catharism,§ whose doctrines were obviously 

' Acta SS. Maii,' vol. vii., p. 91, etc. 
j* Salimbene, pp. 148-49, 297, 319. 
X 1 Hist. eccl., ; i., lxxxiv., No. 35. 

§ Vide the ' Histoire des Cathares ou Albigeois,' by M. C. 
Schmidt, of Strasburg (Geneva, 1848). 



288 AEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



analogous with those of the ' Eternal Gospel ;' 
when we see also the school of the * Eternal 
Gospel ' following a path similar to that of 
Catharism, and almost identified with that sect, 
we are induced to look upon the former as an off- 
shoot of the latter, formed not by direct affiliation, 
but by secret influences. Catharism appears thus 
to have penetrated to the West by two routes, and 
to have given rise in the Middle Ages to two 
parallel heresies, whose results were almost iden- 
tical, which were confounded with each other by 
public opinion, and whose progress was checked 
by the same means. These affinities become still 
more striking when we see contemporary authors 
ascribing to Amauri de Bene, in the early part of 
the thirteenth century, doctrines similar to those of 
the ' Eternal Gospel."* Amauri's doctrines them- 
selves had the closest analogy with those of the 
Orleans heretics of 1022 ; which latter M. Schmidt 
does not hesitate to connect with the Catharist 
Church, t 

Be this as it may, we cannot doubt that such 
attempts at reform sprang from a deep-rooted need. 

Cf. J. M. Meyenberg, ' De pseudo-Evangelio seterno,' 
§§ 2 and 3. St. Antonine ascribes to Amauri doctrines so 
identical with those of the ' Eternal Gospel,' that we are to 
suppose that he speaks of him not from direct knowledge, but 
by inference merely, and according to what was the recog- 
nised type of all sects imbued with Catharism and mysticism. 

f ' Histoire des Cathares,' vol. i., p. 28; vol. ii., pp. 151, 
287. See Dom Bouquet, vol. x., pp. 35, 536, etc. ; ' Cartulaire 
de St. Pere de Chartres, vol. i., p. ioo and fol, and the 
introduction by M. Guerard, p. 219 and fol. 



JOACHIM DI FLOR. 



289 



Even after their condemnation, Joachimite ideas 
existed for nearly a century. They were chiefly 
active in the South of France, where the writings 
of the sect were industriously copied and circu- 
lated.* In 1260, a council, assembled at Aries 
by that same Florent who promoted the Anagni 
Commission, expressly condemned the partisans 
of the Joachimite ternaries and those who pro- 
claimed the approaching advent of the Holy 
Ghost, the reign of the monks, and the abolition 
of images, parables, and sacraments. That same 
year, so long announced as fatal, saw, indeed, 
many novelties, such as the follies of Gerard 
Segarelle and his apostles, and the first epidemics 
of the flagellants.*}* Never before had there been 
such a deluge of prophecies of all kinds, J or so 
many mendicant sects. § Guillaume de Saint- 
Amour's last work, which dates from the same year, 
that book ' De Antichristo,' which so strangely 
bore the anagram of Nicolas Oresme,|| is almost 

° ' Praesertim quum in partibus provinciarum quibus licet 
immeriti in parte prsesidemus, jam plurimos etiam litteratos 
hujusmodi phantasiis intellexerimus eatenus occupatos et il- 
lectos ut plurima super iis commentaria facta descripserint,et, 
de manu ad manum dando circumferentes, ad externos trans- 
fuderint nationes.' — Council of Aries in 1260, in Labbe's work, 
vol. xiv., col. 242. 

t Salimbene, 123, 124, 228,240 ; DArgentre, 'Coll. Jud.,' i., 
367; ' Hist. litt. dela France,' vol. xxi., p. 477. See the passage 
published by M. Boutaric in the ' Notices et Extraits,' vol. 
xx., 2nd part, pp. 235-37. 

X Salimbene, pp. 234,235, 265 and fol., 284, 303, 308 and fol. 

§ Ibid., pp. 109-124, 241, 242, 262, 330, 331, 371, 372, etc. 

|| Vide, in this respect, M. V. Le Clerc's discussion (' Hist. 

19 



2Qo NEW STUDIES IX RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



entirely devoted to the refutation of Joachimite 
errors, against which, a few years before, the 
energetic defender of the University had carried 
on such a lively contest. Everyone was thinking 
of the future of the Church and its coming trials. 
' Some,' says Guillaume, ' like Abbot Joachim, 
predict a peaceful era, opening with the advent of 
the Holy Ghost, and the appearance of a third 
Testament, during which men will be exclusively 
spiritual. Others, struck with the decrease" of 
charity, and the evils multiplying in the Church, 
announce for the last days inspired preachers who 
will revive faith. Others again, promising peace 
and prosperity to the Church, assert that its; old 
age shall last long, and be as vigorous as any 
former period. The inflexible Rector of the 
University refuses all these consolatory hypotheses : 
he devotes his book to expounding the sombre 
theories of the Antichrist, the horrors of the last 
tribulation, the flood of errors which shall precede 
the Judgment. The great interregnum of the 
Roman empire, the arrival of false missionaries 
(the mendicants), who invade the field of the 
true pastors, the blindness and cowardice of the 
prelates, the change in the office of the preachers, 
the false security in which the Church sleeps, the 
cessation of miracles, the progress of infidelity, 
the cooling down of charity, and especially the 
announcement of a new law which is to supersede 

litt. de la France.,' vol.xxi., p. 470 and fol.). Guillaume's work 
may be read in Martene and Durand's ' Amplissima Collec- 
tio,' vol. ix., col. 1,273 an d fol. 



JO A CHIM DI FLOR. 



291 



the Gospel, — all these appear to Guillaume sure 
signs of an approaching catastrophe. In connec- 
tion with this he denounces with great force 
Joachim and his disciples, those ministers not of 
the Holy Ghost, but of the Antichrist, who dare 
to say that Mane Thekel Phares has already been 
written on the walls of the Church, that the 
Christian sacraments are dying out, that the 
Holy Ghost is still to come. Did not Joachim 
predict that about twelve hundred years after 
Christ's incarnation, a new chief, the pontiff of 
the new Jerusalem, that is of the Church in its third 
state, would arise in Babylon ? More than sixty 
years have elapsed since that prophecy, and nothing 
has happened.* He is, therefore, a false prophet. 

I should abandon the plan I have laid down 
were I to attempt to follow the influence of the 
'Eternal Gospel' through the second half of the 
thirteenth century and the first half of the four- 
teenth.-)- If we were writing that history, we 
should show the Franciscan and Joachimite ideas 
inspiring numbers of enthusiasts for more than a 
century; we should almost witness its triumph 
when the papacy fell into the feeble hands of 

* Col. 1333-84. In the { De periculis novissimorum tem- 
porum,' p. 38, Guillaume, expressing a similar thought, says 
fifty-five years, which puts the composition of the 'De 
Antichristo ' about five years after that of the ' De periculis.' 

f One of the most curious works written under the influ- 
ence of Joachim's philosophy is the treatise on Christian sym- 
bolics, composed by Jacques de Carreto, and contained in 
No. 124 of the St. Germain collection. I would point out 
this singular work to some young paleographer. 

19 — 2 



292 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



Peter Celestine ; we should see Boniface VIII., 
the strong successor of that pious and incapable 
old man, energetically rescinding the concessions 
of his predecessor, and the hatred of the fraticelli 
inspiring the bitter satires of Fra Jacopone and 
powerfully contributing to the reputation which this 
pontiff left behind him.* About the same time, a 
fanatic monk, Pierre-Jean d'Olive, takes up, in 
the south of France, the most subversive doc- 
trines of Gerard de San-Donnino,t pretending 
that the millennium is at hand, and that it will 
consist in the literal observance of the rule of 
St. Francis ; that, just as Christ's crucifixion 
opened a new era, so the moment of St. Francis's 
somatization put an end to the worldly Church 
and marked the beginning of an age in which 
evangelical life shall be thoroughly practised ; that 
the virtues and labours of the Minorites will con- 
vert the infidels, the Jews, and the Greek Church, 
destined to prevail over the Church of the Latins ; 

° Vide Dom Luigi Tosti's 1 Storia di Bonifazio VIII./ i., 
pp. 183 and fol., 188 and fol. The Joachimite prophecies 
respecting this pope are overflowing with hatred : ' Ecce 
l'huomo della progenie di Scarioto . . . Neronicamente reg- 
nando, tu morirai sconsolato . . . Perche tanto desideri il 
babilonico principato ? . . .' 

f Gui de Perpignan, in his 1 Summa de hseresibus/ ex- 
pressly identifies Joachim's errors with those of Pierre-Jean. 
See the pieces published by Father Jeiler in the ' Historisches 
Jahrbuch der Gorres-Gesellschaft,' iii., pp. 648-59, and by 
Father Zigliara in his ' De mente concilii Viennensis in 
definiendo dogmate imionis animae humanae cum corpore ' 
(Rome, 1878), p. 106 and fol. Compare 'Zeitschrift fur 
Kirchengeschichte/ vol. vi. (1883), pp. 132-33. 



JOACHIM DI FLOR. 



293 



that the rule of St. Francis being the truly evangelical 
law, it is not surprising that it should be persecuted 
by the carnal Church, as the Gospel was by the 
Synagogue ; that, to fill up the measure of its 
crimes, the carnal Church must condemn the rule 
of St. Francis ; that then the new law, better re- 
ceived by the Greeks, the Jews, the Saracens, and 
the Tartars, than by the Latins, shall return with 
those auxiliaries to crush Rome, who would not 
accept it ; that that Church, commonly called 
universal, catholic, and militant, is the impure 
Babylon, the great harlot, given up to simony, to 
pride, to all vices, finally to hell, just as the 
haughty Vashti was repudiated, and the humble 
Esther crowned. The carnal Church shall then 
be burnt up by the hatred it has vowed against 
the doctrine of saints. 

We should see round Pierre-Jean d'Olive a 
group of men filled with ardent zeal, preaching 
more emphatically than ever the reform of the 
world by poverty, and being alternately canonized 
and anathematized, according as the admiration 
excited by their noble character or the horror in- 
spired by their temerity preponderated ; by some 
called heretics, by others saints who wrought 
miracles. Bernard Delicieux, the sworn enemy 
of the Inquisition, was an ardent Joachimite.* 
The same pretensions put forward by Ubertin de 
Casal, Fra Dolcino, Michel de Cesene, acquire 
special political and social importance from the 

Haureau, 'Bernard Delicieux' (Paris, 1877), pp. 151-55. 



294 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY, 

I 



alliance of the fanatical portion of the Order of 
St. Francis with Louis of Bavaria. Once more 
we should see the question of poverty dividing 
the Christian world, lighting up fires, creating an 
anti-pope ; we should see a general of the 
Minorites, Michel de Cesene,* taking the part of 
Franciscan ideas against popery, and seeking 
outside the Church support against that Church 
which condemned him. We should see in the 
third Order of St. Francis the chief nursery of 
those sects, half religious and half secular, whose 
ambition alarmed the Church and society : Be- 
guins and Beguines, Fratricelles, Frerots, Bizoques 
(Binzocchieri, Freres bis, Bizets), Barbozati, 
Freres pyes, Freres agaches, Sack-friars, Friars 
of the ' pauvre vie,' Flagellants, Lollards, Apos- 
tolical Friars, Apostles even (for they went so far 
as to take that name), with whose appearance 
corresponds that of several apocryphal Messiahs, 
or so-called incarnations of the Holy Ghost, such 
as Gonzalve of Cuenca.-f* 

We cannot doubt that some bold and popular 
idea lay beneath those monastic exteriors, when we 
have all these sectarians unanimously declaring 

* Michel de Ce"sene : s doctrines were word for word those 
of Joachim as interpreted by John of Parma and Gdrard de 
San-Donnino. Vide Baluze's ' Miscell.,' vol. i., p. 272 and fol. 

f Cf. 1 Direct, inq.,' p. 200 ; D'Argentre', i., p. 176 ; Fleury, 
book xci., §§ 42, 59, 60 ; xcvi., § 36 ; Tosti, op. cit., i. p. 185 
and fol. ; Schmidt, ' Histoire des Cathares,' passim ; and 
above all, Gui de Perpignan's ' Summa de haeresibus ' (Paris, 
1528, folio). 



JOACHIM DI FLOR. 



295 



that they only acknowledge God ; that they are 
not subject to any obedience ; that they imitate 
the life of Christ and his Apostles ; and that all 
the authority of the Roman Church — that Church 
doomed because of the wickedness of its cardinals 
and prelates — is to pass into the hands of the 
people.* In the Middle Ages, conventual gar- 
ments were often only a safeguard, a guarantee 
of inviolability, often, also, a pretext for vaga- 
bondage, as is seen from the innumerable decrees 
of provincial councils against monks and vagrant 
scholars, who unlawfully wore the religious habit. 
The habit of St. Francis, closely resembling 
that of a beggar, was used in Italy and in the 
south of France to cover dangerous popular asso- 
ciations, such as those who condemned all 
work, elevated mendicancy into a duty, de- 
clared that perfection would consist in going 
wholly unclad, and uttered passionate invectives 
against wealthy and worldly men. There were 
others who asserted that they alone had the right 
to invoke the Holy Ghost by the laying on of 
hands ; that outside their Order none could be 
saved ; that the prelates of the carnal Church 
were only deserving of contempt ; that the popes, 
since the days of St. Sylvester, had all been 
seducers, with the sole exception of Peter Celes- 
tine ; that no excommunication could reach them, 
since St. Francis's rule was superior to the pope 
and the Church. Taken as a whole, the Order of 
'Direct, inq.,' p. 201 and fol. 



296 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



St. Francis had doubtless the right to repudiate 
any responsibility for such extravagances ; yet 
the belief in a certain degree of relationship be- 
tween the various communities of religious mendi- 
cants w as based upon a real foundation. In the 
same way the Catharists, from the length of their 
robes and their austerity, were often confused with 
the friars of the third Order, under the names of 
' Bonshommes' and ' Cagots.' If we glance at 
the records of the Toulouse and Carcassonne 
Inquisition,* we are rather surprised to find that 
all who were condemned by that redoubtable 
tribunal were friars of the third Order, or Be- 
guins. Outward appearances, and often indica- 
tions slighter still, were evidence enough for 
those inquisitors, who sent to the stake unfor- 
tunate wretches suspected of Catharism, merely 
because of their pale complexions : * Audierat 
enim eos solo pallore notare hsereticos, quasi quos 
pallere constaret, haereticos esse certum esset.'f 

° Ph. de Limborch, ' Hist. Inquis., cui subjungitur liber 
vSententiarum Inquis. Tolosanae ab anno 1307 ad 1323' 
(Amstelodami, 1692). Baluze, 1 Miscell.,' vol. i., p. 213 and 
fol. MSS. of St. Germain, Nos. 395, 396 (Acts of the Toulouse 
Inquisition, from 1285 to 1304, unpublished), and several 
other pieces of the Doat Collection. Compare (ancient 
collection) No. 6,193. Study Bernard Delicieux's trial 
(Haureau, op. cit.). The Minerva library at Rome possesses 
many similar documents. Vide chiefly the extracts from 
Bernard Gui's 1 Practica,' in Molinier's ' L'Inquisition dans 
le Midi de la France,' pp. 230, 231. 

f ' Gesta episcoporum Leodiensium,' in Martene and 
Durand's 1 Ampliss. Collectio,' vol. iv., col. 901. 



JOACHIM DI FLOR. 



297 



Without having looked through the original 
documents we have just quoted, it is impossible 
to understand the importance acquired in the 
south of France by such secret societies. The 
corruption of the clergy provoked reactions worse 
than the original evil. It is remarkable that all 
the sympathies of those contemporary writers who 
have really transmitted to us the echo of public 
opinion, are for the Beguins and Catharists : they 
are the saints, and orthodox priests, on the con- 
trary, are the heretics.* The same fact is equally 
noticeable in Lombardy. Milan especially had 
become a centre of hostility against the Church. 
Catharism was openly professed in that city. In 
1280, a Beguine named Guillelmina represented 
herself as the Holy Ghost, and after her death 
miracles occurred at her grave. In the complicated 
struggles of those times, it is difficult to trace 
with certainty the divisions of the different parties. 
Alliances between extremes were not unfrequent. 
We thus see the Catharists openly protected by 
the Ghibellines, and the ' exalted ' Franciscan 
party more than once allied with the emperor 
against the pope. 

But neither these deceptive coalitions, nor any of 
the stratagems employed by the sectarians to mis- 
lead the authorities, sufficed to protect them. The 
Roman Church, aided by an order more disciplined 
than that of St. Francis, ceaselessly persecuted the 
popular associations which sprang from the rule 

s Vide C. Schmidt's ' Histoire des Cathares,' vol. i., p. 189. 



2q3 new studies of religious history. 



of Assisi. On the one hand she strove to direct 
the harmless portions of those devout crowds ; 
on the other, she punished seditious factions with 
imprisonment and fire. Thousands of Beguins 
and friars of the third Order were burned alive in 
the north of Italy and the south of France, in 
Flanders and in Germany, while elsewhere their 
co-religionists were looked upon as saints, and 
obtained the honours of popular canonization. 
There are the same contradictions in the his- 
torical accounts of their characters, their lives, 
and their morals. In one they are represented as 
idlers, delighting in vagabondage and depravity ; 
in another as industrious associations, working 
for their livelihood, and of great purity of morals. 
It is probable that, in different countries and 
under different names, these societies deserved to 
be differently estimated. All that they really 
had in common was their dress, like that of the 
religious mendicants, and that austere and 
pious appearance which won the affection of the 
masses, but roused the suspicions of the Church- 
people, and excited the ridicule of men of the 
world. 

The name of heresy being applied, in the Middle 
Ages, to any deviation from the rule of the Church, 
could not fail to be applied to them. This must 
not lead us to suppose that they always had a 
secret doctrine and a settled creed. Sometimes, 
no doubt, Catharist ideas, more often still those 
of the Gospel of the Holy Ghost, lay hid beneath 



JOACHIM DI FLOR. 



299 



the robes of the monks ; but, in most cases, their 
- heresy consisted only in their suspicious mode of 
living. After the middle of the fourteenth century, 
these associations became only pious brother- 
hoods, subject to the Church, and directed by her; 
and it is thus that they still survive in Belgium, 
in Italy, and in the south of France. The idea of 
reform which they contained at the outset, con- 
tinually opposed by the official Church, by the 
universities, by secular society, was thus stifled 
or limited to a small number of followers, made 
powerless by the ruling spirit of their order and 
of their epoch. 

These aspirations towards an unknown religious 
future did, however, break forth at intervals up to 
the very threshold of modern times, and even 
beyond it. The deplorable spectacle presented 
by the papacy at the close of the fourteenth and 
towards the beginning of the fifteenth centuries 
again stirred religious feeling. In his severity 
against the high clergy and his Christian boldness, 
the prophet of Avignon, John de Rochetaillade, 
emulates Joachim himself.* A hermit of Calabria, 
Telesphorus, or Theolosphorus, of Cosenza, en- 
deavoured to revive the authority of the name of 
his fellow-countryman, Joachim. f On Easter 

D'Argentre"'s ' Coll. jud.,' i., pp. 374-76 ; Fleury, book 
xcvi., § 33. 

f ' Acta SS. Maii,' vol. vii., pp. 139, 140. Mayenberg, ' De 
pseudo-Evangelio aeterno,' p. 21 and fol. ' Histoire litteVaire 
de la France,' vol. xxv., p. 257. Laporte du Theil's ' Extraits/ 
vol. ix., p. 100 (No. 1108, Ottobon). 



3oo NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



morning, in the year 1386, as he was weeping 
over the great schism and the decline of the 
Church, an angel appeared to him and ordered 
him to read the prophecies of Cyrillus and 
Joachim, informing him that he would find the 
present misfortunes and the end ordained by God 
predicted in them. Telesphorus hastened to 
collect Joachim's prophecies, which he found 
scattered over the monasteries of Calabria, and 
wrote a book applying them to his century. He 
tried to prove, by means of those mysterious 
oracles, that the Romish Church was on the eve 
of being exterminated by the Greeks, the Sara- 
cens, and the Tartars, instruments of the divine 
wrath, who would purify it by depriving it of the 
temporal goods which had corrupted it ; that, 
instead of the false pontiff, there would appear an 
angelic pastor, who, combining his power with 
that of the emperor, would spread the ' Eternal 
Gospel ' throughout the earth.* Then would 
come the reign of the Holy Ghost, an age of bliss 
and perfection, during which the schisms and 
scandals which tried the Church in past centuries 
should completely disappear. Knowledge should be 
given to everyone, for a contemplative life should 
be open to all without needing instruction from the 
' Insurget sanctissima et nova religio, quae erit libera et 
spiritualis, in qua romanus pontifex dominabitur spiritualiter 
in omni gente a mari usque ad mare. Erit autem illud in 
tempore vel circa tempus persecutionis Babylonis novae, id 
est Romae, tempore angelici Pastoris, quando afflicta nimis 
ecclesia liberabitur a jugo servitutis illius.' 



JOACHIM DI FLOR. 



301 



doctors. The Greeks and the Jews, whom evan- 
gelical law was powerless to bring into the fold, 
should be converted, and surpass in holiness and 
fervour the ancient Latin people. This was 
simply a reproduction of the dreams of Joachim, 
of John of Parma, of Pierre-Jean d'Olive. 

In 1388 these ideas were again disseminated in 
Paris by Thomas of Puglia, who, like thousands 
of others, proclaimed the reign of the Holy Ghost, 
the end of the rule of the prelates, and the inutility 
of sacraments. The Bishop of Paris, Pierre d'Ouge- 
mont, handed him over to the secular authorities ; 
but since the reign of Charles V. common-sense 
had acquired a certain influence in the world : 
the physicians declared him mad, and his book 
alone was burned.* Wilhelm of Hildernissem and 
the 'intellectual brotherhood ' disseminated the 
same doctrines in the Flemish countries about 
i/j-ii.t In Pierre d'Ailly, then Bishop of Cambrai, 
they met with another Guillaume de Saint-Amour 
— I mean a zealous guardian of the Gallican tradi- 
tion, a tradition essentially episcopal, and always 
opposed to the sectarian and monastic spirit. 

The sixteenth century saw several renewals of 
these efforts.J It is worthy of remark that the 
early reformers regarded Joachim as an ally. His 
apocryphal works were read eagerly by Protestant 

D'Argentre, ' Coll. jud./ i., 2nd part, p. 151. 
t Ibid., i., 2nd part, p. 207. 

% See, on this point, Meyenberg's monograph, already 
quoted several times. 



3Q2 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



writers, anxious to discover their predecessors. 
J. Wolf, especially, in a compilation entitled 
' Lectionum memorabilium et reconditarum cen- 
tenarii xvi.' (Lauingen, 1600), embodied all the 
passages from Joachim and the Joachimists which 
favoured the doctrines or the antipathies of his 
co-religionists.* It is the most peculiar collec- 

° Here are some of those curious passages (Wolf, i., p. 
488 and fol.)- I have verified most of them, and found they 
were corect : 

1 Nullus populorum legitur ad tantam amaritudinem per- 
duxisse Romanam Ecclesiam sicut domesticus Alemannus. — 
\'ideat Ecclesiam si, de acceptandis et improbandis elec- 
tionibus principum, confusionis maculam non incurrit : qui 
tangit picem inquinatur ab ea ; qui communicat superbo 
induet superbiam. — Intra Ecclesiam romanam sunt mer- 
cenarii plurimi non pastores qui etiam bestiae dicuntur a 
vastando, dracones a saeviendo, struthiones a simulando, 
sirense a luxuriando, pilosi a propinquos amando. — Tran- 
scendit papale praetorium cunctas curias in calumniosis 
litibus et quaestibus extorquendis. — Ad Petrum dictum fuit : 
quum senueris, alius te cinget et ducet quo tu non vis. — Quid 
dicam de summo pontifice Aarone, qui modernos prassules 
representat, qui ad instantiam populi qui egressus fuerat de 
^Egypto vitulum conflavit et sculptile, quod totum ad librum 
Decretalium referendum est, in quo omnis dolus et calumnia 
perseverat : ac per hoc curia Sedis Petri nullum pontificat 
qui hujus simulacra non adorat. — Quod Deus minus puniet 
laicos quam clericos et praelatos, quia minus voluntatem Dei 
cognoverunt, — Quod principes alemannorum jura temporalia 
executient ab Ecclesia romana. — Quod Ecclesia prius con- 
fundenda et spolianda et praedanda ac captivanda est ab 
Imperio. — Quod Ecclesia putabit ut Imperium alemannorum 
et regnum Franciae sibi favorem impenderent et a cunctis 
molestiis earn liberarent, sed nihil ab eis habebit prosperum. — 
Quod auctor usque modo prohibitus est revelare et denudare 



JOACHIM DI FLOR. 



303 



tion of maledictions imaginable. The tone of im- 
placable hostility and concentrated fury would 
rather surprise those who look back to the Middle 
Ages as a period of perfect submission to the 
Church. 

We will abstain from inquiring whether, in our 
days, Joachim could still claim any legitimate 
successors.* To preserve the exact meaning of the 
words ' Eternal Gospel,' they should be applied 
solely to the first phase of that vast movement, the 
centre of which is in the Order of St. Francis, and 
which gave rise to such curious popular aberra- 
tions. Such as it is, despite its faults and its 
failure, that endeavour is nevertheless the boldest 
attempt at religious creation made in modern 
times ; and it would have changed the face of the 
world, had not its progress been arrested by the 



ignominiam matris sua? Ecclesice, sed nunc cogitur prodere 
ejus iniquitates. Ait enim : Pudorem mini ingero, quia meae 
matris pudenda denude — Quod oppressi ab ecclesiasticis 
clamant ad Deum dicentes : O Deus quousque non vindicas 
sanguinem innocentum sub altari clamantium. — Quod Eccle- 
sia Latina et Romana graviora quam Graeca passura est in 
proximo, quia nequiora commisit. — Quod ipsi prselati et 
Ecclesia carnalis erubescere deferent ad redargutionem 
virorum spiritualium et doctorum et a culpa desistere. Sed 
quia factus est eis fronis meretricis et induruit malitia, nolunt 
erubescere. — Quod apprehendendus est Petrus, scilicet Sum- 
mus Pontifex, et ligandus,' etc. 

We must not, however, forget the beautiful romance of 
Sfiiridion, in which Joachim's figure was skilfully drawn 
and brought into the picture with marvellous art. On this 
point Madame Sand owed much to M. Pierre Leroux. 



304 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



disciplined intelligence of the thirteenth century. 
The Roman Church, the Paris University, the 
Order of St. Dominic, the civil power, so often 
opposed to each other, entered into a league 
against pretensions which would have shaken the 
very groundwork of human society. The extreme 
severity of the means employed to annihilate 
these strange doctrines is revolting to us ; many 
praiseworthy aspirations were included in the 
same condemnation ; yet true progress owed little 
to these good sectarians. It sprang from the 
parallel movement which directed the human 
mind towards science, political reform, the de- 
finitive constitution of society. As early as 1255, 
it was easy to see that progress, as modern 
societies understand it, comes from above, not 
from below ; from reason, not from imagination ; 
from common-sense, not from enthusiasm ; from 
wise men, not from illuminati who seek in 
chimeras for the secrets of destiny. No doubt 
thinkers must respect men who, impelled by a 
lofty ideal of human life, protest against the im- 
perfections inherent in all social states, and dream 
of some ideal law in conformity with the require- 
ments of their hearts ; but no human efforts can 
1 remove the bounds of possibility. The world is 
the result of causes too intricate to allow it ever 
to be compressed within an absolute system. No 
symbol can ever represent the progress of man- 
kind in the past, much less serve as the rule of its 
future. 



FRANCIS OF AS SIS I. 

M. Karl Hase's work, entitled ' Franz von 
Assisi ' (Leipzig, 1856), is a little masterpiece of 
religious criticism. M. Hase treats ecclesiastical 
history in a way of his own. A professor of 
theology and member of the Upper Council of the 
Saxon Church, at the same time that he is devoid 
of prejudice, and convinced that God does not 
regard forms or symbols, but only the heart of 
man, he has invented phrases of admirable dis- 
cretion and nicety, in order to state important 
religious facts without any reference to confessional 
considerations. If in some portions of his numer- 
ous writings, and above all in his ' History of the 
Church,' his determined moderation, which is 
somewhat assumed, and his tone, at once ironical 
and caressing, lead him into a certain obscurity, 
into far-fetched allusions and a trick of half-ex- 
pressing what he means, which may be thought 
laboured and affected, in his ' Life of St. Francis 
of Assisi ' such defects are scarcely seen. Here 
one has nothing but praise for his sound judg- 
ment, his accurate style, and his mastery of his 
subject. It is fortunate that this excellent book 

20 



3o6 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



has found a competent translator. In this little 
volume M. Charles Berthoud has displayed perfect 
knowledge of religious history, and great aptitude 
for scholarly investigations. It is not exactly a 
translation which he has given us. M. Hase's 
thought is throughout scrupulously respected, but 
according to a custom prevalent in our own days 
in translating German works, and which, for my 
part, I regret, M. Berthoud has altered certain 
chapters and omitted some of the notes. Such as 
it is, M. lu rthoud's is certainly the best work 
extant in French on the life of him whom one of 
his disciples calls the ' patriarch of mendicants.'* 
Francis of Assisi has unparalleled interest for 
religious criticism. Of all men, after Jesus, he 
possessed the clearest conscience, the most perfect 
simplicity, the strongest sense of his filial relation 
to the Heavenly Father. God was truly his begin- 
ning and his end. In him, Adam seemed never to 
have sinned. His life is a poetic madness, a 
perpetual intoxication of divine love. For a whole 
week he lived on the chirp of a grasshopper. His 
eyes, clear and deep as those of a child, penetrated 
to the inmost secrets, those things which God 
conceals from the wise and reveals to the humble. 

* ' Francois (T Assise, e'tude historique, d'apres le docteur 
Karl Hase, professeur a l'Universite' d'Idna, par M. Charles 
Berthoud.' Paris, Levy, 1864, small 8vo. M. Fre'de'ric 
Morin's work, ' St. Francois d'Assise et les Franciscans 
(Paris, Hachette, 1858), is very valuable in parts. But it 
represents Francis too much as an organizer, almost as a 
politician. 



FRANCIS OF ASSIST. 



3o7 



We can closely study that prodigy of holiness, 
that miracle of meekness and simplicity in one 
who achieved enormous popularity, who was 
always conspicuous, and who proved himself a 
great man of action and a successful originator. 

Centuries deficient in virtue like ours are essen- 
tially sceptical. Judging everyone by themselves, 
they call the great ideal figures of the past impos- 
sible and chimerical. To please certain minds, 
history should be constructed without a single 
great man. When you show them a picture 
surpassing the level of mediocrity to which they 
are accustomed, they accuse you of introducing 
legend into history. They believe that all men 
have been as base and selfish as themselves. Now 
this is one of the richest and most complete of 
legends. Francis of Assisi stands before us in a 
light as ethereal as Jesus and Sakya-Muni. And 
yet, we have abundant proof that, apart from its 
miraculous surroundings, the real character of 
Francis of Assisi answered exactly to the portrait 
which remains of him. To me, Francis of Assisi 
has always been one of the most powerful reasons 
for believing Jesus to have been nearly such as the 
synoptical evangelists described him. Recent 
examples might lead us to imagine that the great 
founders of the faith were egotists, full of self- 
importance, entirely preoccupied by their mission 
and sacrificing everything to it. It is certain that 
if any man, in our time, should attempt to do 
even part of what Francis of Assisi did, he would 

20 — 2 



3 o3 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



soon be ruined. But let us never take our own 
age as our criterion when we would judge of any- 
thing great in history. Francis experienced the 
most extraordinary popularity without showing 
the smallest vanity or self-consciousness. The 
people made a saint of him before his death, and 
yet he never lost his simplicity. 

Though legendary and tinged with the super- 
natural, the life of Francis of Assisi is, nevertheless, 
well known to us. Paintings almost contemporary 
have preserved his features. We see, as though 
it were still alive, that fine Italian face, thin and 
pale, with its large eyes, its regular features, its 
almost playful smile, its extreme mobility. The 
three legends of Francis of Assisi — one (that of 
Thomas of Celano) written three years after his 
death ; the second (that of the ' Three Com- 
panions,' Leo, Rufinus, Angelus) seventeen years 
later than that of Thomas of Celano ; the third, 
composed by St. Bonaventura, yet seventeen years 
later — are masterpieces of simple compilation, in 
which one sees clearly what may be attributed to 
imagination and what to historical fact. These 
great legends, at once ideal and real, were the 
special heritage of the Order of St. Francis, or 
perhaps of the thirteenth century. The book of 
the ' Dits des quatre ancelles,' or ' Life of St. 
Elizabeth,' composed from the narratives of the 
four women who waited on her, is a mirror of 
wonderful lucidity. These are the texts we must 
read to understand what a legend is ; how a narra- 



FRANCIS OF ASSIST. 



309 



tive full of anecdote, and fabulous in form, may 
be truer than truth itself ; how the glory of a 
legend belongs in a measure to the great man on 
whose life it is founded, and who so worked on 
the imagination of his humble admirers as to 
enable them to see in him features which without 
him they could never have invented. 

Unfortunately this is not always the case. The 
physiognomy of great leaders is often transformed 
by their disciples. Sometimes the legend creates 
the hero, but often also the hero creates his own 
legend. In other words, there are legends which 
without being biographies or histories (these words 
must be limited to statements of 'facts, in which 
there is nothing supernatural) are true portraits. 
In such cases a simple operation will discover the 
truth : discard all that is marvellous, the tendency 
to the concrete and the anecdote, which material- 
ises the idea and concentrates in a particular story 
the features which revealed themselves piecemeal 
in the course of a life. Those who think that 
the fabulous character of a biography totally 
deprives it of historical worth, should assert that 
Francis of Assisi never existed, that he was a myth 
created to express the ideal conceived by his dis- 
ciples. The reverse of that opinion is the true 
one. The Franciscan movement had its initiative 
in the strong impression made by Francis of 
Assisi on some disciples of kindred spirit, though 
much inferior to himself. The legend of St. 
Francis presents the aspect with which we are 



3io NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



acquainted because it really was his own person- 
ality whose image he impressed on the minds of his 
disciples. The beauty of the portrait belongs in 
this case to the original, not to the genius of the 
artist who painted it. 

The cause of this remarkable exception is quite 
simple. That which distinguishes Francis of 
Assisi, in his century and in all centuries, is his 
complete originality. He is undoubtedly a Chris- 
tian, and even a Christian obedient to the Church ; 
but his piety is of a unique kind. It is probable 
that in France, or, indeed, anywhere but in that 
sweet and shady Umbrian valley, he would have 
been accused of heresy. He drew little from 
the Bible, which he seldom read. He was no 
scholastic ; he was neither priest nor theologian. 
He was equally free from mediaeval superstition, 
specially that relative to saints ; without avowing 
it, he knew he was their equal. His character 
was moulded first by Umbria, the ' seraphic pro- 
vince ' — the Galilee of Italy, at once fertile and 
wild, smiling and austere — then by Provencal 
poetry. He was fond of the troubadours ; in many 
respects he took them as his models. He used 
their tongue for praying and singing. From their 
name (juglcor),he called his disciples ' Jongleurs 
de Dieu.'. 

What belongs to himself alone is his way of feel- 
ing. Even Buddhism has nothing like it. Francis 
is superior to the Buddhistic ' arhan.' He delights 
in reality ; he disdains nothing ; he is indifferent to 



FRANCIS OF ASSIST. 



nothing; he loves everything; he has a smile and 
a tear for all ; a flower sends him into ecstasies ; 
he sees in Nature only brothers and sisters. What 
most revolts us in Oriental asceticism is the fright- 
ful baldness to which it reduces life. I saw one 
of those Eastern ascetics in an Egyptian village, 
near the desert.* He had been there for twenty 
years, sitting on the sand, plunged in lethargy, 
neither seeing nor hearing ; his legs were as thin 
as the bones of a skeleton. The sun, scorching 
his skull, had shrivelled up all consciousness ; he 
had less life than the reed or the palm-tree. 
Stylites and Fakirs create a void around them till 
they stupefy themselves. Francis of Assisi was 
the reverse of this. For him everything had 
meaning and beauty. We know » that admirable 
canticle which he is believed to have named the 
' Creatures' Song ; ' it is the finest religious poem 
since the Gospels, the most complete expression 
of modern religious sentiment. t 

' Highest omnipotent good Lord, 
Glory and honour to Thy Name adored, 
And praise and every blessing. 
Of everything Thou art the source. 
No man is worthy to pronounce Thy Name. 



° At Tel-el-Kebir, on the borders of the isthmus of Suez. 

f The authenticity of this canticle seems indubitable ; but 
it must be noticed that we do not possess the Italian original. 
The existing Italian text is translated from a Portuguese 
version, which was a translation from the Spanish. The 
original canticle was versified by Friar Pacificus. The 
present text is written in prose. 



312 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



1 Praised by His creatures all, 
Praised be the Lord my God, 
By Messer Sun, my brother above all, 
Who by His rays, lights us and lights the day — 
Radiant is she, with His great splendour stored, 
Thy glory, Lord, confessing. 

4 By Sister Moon and stars my Lord is praised. 
Where clear and fair they in the heavens are raised. 

4 By Brother Wind, my Lord, Thy praise is said, 
By air and clouds and the blue sky overhead, 
By which Thy creatures all are kept and fed. 

4 By one most humble, useful, precious, chaste, 
By Sister Water, O my Lord, Thou art praised. 

' And praised is my Lord 
By Brother Fire — he who lights up the night ; 
Jocund, robust is he, and strong and bright. 

4 Praised art Thou, my Lord, by Mother Earth, 
Thou who sustainest her and governest, 
And to her flowers, fruit, herbs, dost colour give and birth. 

' Praised by our Sister Death, my Lord, art Thou, 
From whom no living man escapes. 
Who die in mortal sin have mortal woe ; 
But blessed they who die doing Thy will, 
The second death can strike at them no blow.' 

Here is none of the constraint of Port Royal 
and the mystics of the French school of the 
seventeenth century, none of the exaggeration and 
frenzy of the Spanish mystics. At the point to 
which Francis of Assisi had attained, death 
became meaningless. In his eyes no natural 

* We quote from the admirable version given by Mrs. 
Oliphant in her 'Francis of Assisi,' as it would be impossible 
to supply a new one equally excellent. — Translator's Note. 



FRANCIS OF ASSIST. 



313 



object was antipathetic or contemptible. He used 
to pick up the worms from the roads that they 
might not be trodden upon ; he exerted his in- 
genuity to save lambs from death or from the 
rough attacks of goats ; he used to release animals 
caught in traps, giving them good advice so that 
they might not again fall into danger. He loved 
even the purity of a drop of water, and tried to 
prevent it from being sullied. That great mark of 
a mind free from vulgar pedantry, affection for 
animals and sympathy with them, was stronger in 
him than in any other man. Far removed from 
the brutality of the false spiritualism of the Car- 
tesians, he only acknowledged one sort of life ; 
he recognised degrees in the scale of being, but 
no sudden interruptions ; like the sages of India, 
he could not admit that false classification which 
places man on one side, and, on the other, those 
thousand forms of life of which we only see the 
outside, and in which, though our eyes detect only 
uniformity, there may lie infinite diversity. For 
Francis nature had but one voice. One day, as 
he was returning to his hermitage at Monte 
Alverno, he heard crowds of birds chirping near 
his cell. ' See, brother,' he said, ' how our sisters 
seem to rejoice at our arrival !' Later, in the hour 
of his death, St. Bonaventura relates with wonder 
that larks, those lovers of light, circled joyously 
round the roof of his house, already wrapt in the 
shade of evening. 

His thorough goodness makes these miracles of 



3U NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



simplicity appear credible. He had acquired the 
indulgent tenderness of a great artist, of all beings 
the one nearest to God. Imitating the Heavenly 
Father, who causes His light to shine alike on the 
just and the unjust, or the sun which every morn- 
ing smiles equally on the great swarms of men 
rising to go each where his desire leads him, he 
does not believe in evil : he does not admit its 
existence. Not that he was indifferent ; but, 
reading all hearts, he considered meanness the 
only unpardonable sin. Avarice, the narrow sen- 
timent of the father of a family, who thinks of his 
children more than of his soul, is the only vice 
on which he is severe. Weakness and error are 
to him scarcely sins. He wishes brigands to be 
well treated ; he is persuaded that hunger is the 
cause of all misdeeds. To a man who had just 
been robbed, and who was uttering blasphemous 
imprecations, he offered all he possessed, provided 
the man would no longer rail at Providence. Like 
the Heavenly Father, he also has a secret sym- 
pathy for sinners ; certain weaknesses appear to 
him marks of goodness, certain errors to proceed 
from the vivacity of strength. We all know the 
story of the wolf of Gubbio. Francis having 
stipulated that he should have a daily allowance, 
the wolf, duly fed from house to house, renounced 
his murderous habits. This M. Hase, not without 
reason, compares with the paternal processes of 
the old pontifical government, which used to 
pension brigands in order to convert them. 



FRANCIS OF ASSIST. 



3i5 



We may say that Francis of Assisi was the only 
perfect Christian since Jesus. He stands alone, 
as having with boundless faith and love en- 
deavoured to fulfil the law laid down in Galilee. 
His rule was simply the Sermon on the Mount, 
with nothing altered or explained away. Francis 
never wished to be the head of any particular 
order ; his only desire was to practise evangelical 
morality, to realize the primitive ideal of Christian 
perfection. The thesis of the book of the ' Con- 
formities ' is the true one : Francis was really a 
second Christ — or rather, he was a faithful mirror 
of Christ. The fundamental idea of the gospel is 
the vanity of worldly cares which turn men aside 
from the joys of the kingdom of God. Such is 
also the essential principle of Francis of Assisi. 
To him, as to Jesus, birds seem to lead a perfect 
life : they possess no barns ; they sing unceas- 
ingly ; they always live on God's gifts, and never 
want anything. Dante, whose sentiment is in 
many respects much more Umbrian than Tuscan, 
said in admirable verse : ' Bereaved of her first 
husband, Poverty, that spouse to whom, as to 
Death, no one willingly opens his door, had been 
despised and neglected for eleven hundred years, 
when this one, before the Heavenly Father and the 
celestial court, took her for his bride and daily 
loved her more.' Our century, whose essential 
feature is to judge things, not by their aesthetic or 
moral value, but by their material disadvantages, 
cannot understand such absolute idealism. Its 



316 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



pretension is to do great things without moral 
greatness. Its inexperience in history, its assump- 
tion of inaugurating a new era, inspire it with ex- 
aggerated confidence in wealth. Here is a poor 
man, the son of a tradesman of Assisi, a sort of 
lunatic — by turns beggar, cook, and vagabond — 
who achieves a work such as will never be achieved 
by our great men of action and our capitalists, — 
a work which lasts for seven or eight centuries, 
and which implies principles true for all time. 

II. 

The leading idea of Francis of Assisi, the idea 
that it is wrong to possess anything; that it is 
more noble to be poor than to be rich ; that men- 
dicity is a fine thing and even a virtue, requires 
close examination. In the first place, it must be 
noticed that Francis forbids appropriation, but 
by no means forbids enjoyment. Now there 
are cases where enjoyment supposes possession ; 
but there are others where possession excludes 
enjoyment, the best things being by their nature 
indivisible. What things afford man the fullest 
joy ? Precisely those which belong to nobody, 
such as national glory, a great past, the master- 
pieces of poetry, religious impressions, the sea, 
uncultured plains, forests, deserts, the snow-clad 
mountain-tops. There is no poetry in Beauce or 
Normandy. A country intersected with boundary 
walls, where we tread excellent roads, where 



FRANCIS OF ASSIS1. 



317 



everybody enjoys nature within his own garden, 
is scarcely poetic. At first sight it seems as 
though the dream of Francis of Assisi would 
have put an end to art and noble life. And yet 
this sordid mendicant was the father of Italian 
art. Painting his legend on his tomb brought 
the genius of Cimabue and Giotto to light. Art, 
that refined aristocrat, obstinately refuses its ser- 
vices to the rich ; it works either for princes or 
for the poor. In spite of her millions, wealthy 
England will never have an art worthy of the 
name. Art is the child of a society with lofty 
aims, living for glory and the ideal. It can 
accommodate itself to municipal republics, to the 
princely life of an almost sovereign aristocracy, 
and to monastic life, because that life permits of 
broad extensions, of great works undertaken in 
common. I see clearly what kings, republics, 
princes, nobles, monks, and the poor have done 
for civilization ; but I cannot conceive what grand 
achievement could be the result of a society 
founded upon the selfishness of individual posses- 
sion. I fear the final result of such a society 
would only be deplorable mediocrity. 

I should no doubt be accused of paradox, were 
I to assert that the ideas of Francis of Assisi are 
the remedy for this evil of our time. The theory 
of the pre-eminent merit of almsgiving will not, 
in these days, meet with many partisans. We 
must also acknowledge that the enmity of the 
Franciscan school to wealth and economy was 



3 iS NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



in many respects exaggerated. Possession is not 
an evil. It is, indeed, true that the acquisition of 
riches implies some imperfection : because if the 
wealthy man had been less eager for gain, less 
engrossed in business, more mindful of his spiritual 
life ; if he had given more alms and shown more 
of that liberality which marks a lofty mind, he 
would not have been so rich. We make our 
fortunes by our faults : to become wealthy, we 
must insist on our rights, be careful of our money, 
take advantage of others, go to law — things which, 
though not wrong, are not the best, nor the fit work 
of loft\- minds. Where the treasure is, there is the 
heart also. Property narrows and weighs down 
the soul. The bird is more active than the snail, 
which drags its shell after it. 

But there is another Franciscan idea which is 
truer still : it is the principle that spiritual things 
are not to be bought. The disproportion between 
those things and any price that could be paid for 
them is such that they would still be given, not 
purchased. With her exquisite tact in spiritual 
things, the Church saw this. She does not admit 
that she is ever repaid. - Though wealthy, she calls 
herself poor, because, if all the world were offered 
her, she would still say it was not enough. Men 
devoted to noble professions will never admit that 
their work is paid for. I was told in my childhood 
thatj in the times of the pirates, the Breton sea- 
men used to come home from their heroic expe- 
ditions laden with gold. But, despising booty 



FRANCIS OF ASSIST. 



319 



which would have made mercenaries of them, 
those proud men invented a peculiar pastime. 
They made their gold pieces red-hot, and then 
threw them into the street, amused at the efforts 
made by the mob to get hold of them. Having 
the glory, they abandoned the profit to the coarser 
natures which it suited. 

We, whose lot it is to drag on our lives in the 
mud of a submerged Atlantis,* may draw from 
these grand dreams of a vanished heaven a true, 
a deep, an inward consolation. Let us picture 
to ourselves the first Chapter of the Order, those 
five thousand mendicants in huts made of straw 
and boughs from the trees at the foot of the 
mountain of Assisi, and the amazed bystanders 
exclaiming : ' Yes, this is indeed the camp of 
God!' Or, better still, the distribution of the 
great indulgence of the Portiuncula. From the, 
first stroke of the vesper bell on the first of August 
until the vespers on the following day, the crowd 
pressed, half stifled under the burning sun, to cross 
the little chapel and obtain the full pardon. " My 
good people,' the Dominicans would say, ' why do 
you expose yourselves to this heat, to this fatigue ? 
The indulgence you are promised is not so great 
as you are told, and the Minorites cannot show 
the pope's license.' That was true; the pope 

* Atlantis is said to have been an immense island outside 
the Pillars of Hercules, once the seat of a mighty empire, 
the degeneracy of whose inhabitants Jupiter punished with 
the total submersion of their country. 



32o NEW STUDIES OE RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



never gave any written authority to Francis : 
1 Christ is my advocate,' the holy man used to 
say, 'and the angels are my witnesses !' In the 
evening an old woman died ; she appeared to the 
pilgrims, and said : ' By virtue of this indulgence, 
I entered straight into Heaven.' 

The beauty of the Franciscan legend is its having 
sprung in its entirety from the popular conscience 
without ecclesiastical intervention. It is the glory 
of Italy that her people are polished in speech, 
refined in taste, and of exquisite tact, able to 
inspire beautiful things, to help to produce them ? 
to appreciate them. Next to Christianity the 
Franciscan movement is the greatest popular work 
recorded in history. We trace in it the simplicity 
of men who know nothing but nature on the one 
hand, and what they have seen and heard in 
church on the other, and mix all this together 
with the utmost freedom. We find ourselves a 
thousand miles removed from scholasticism. 
Francis of Assisi is almost the only man in the 
Middle Ages who was never tainted by that 
leprosy, whose mind was never infected by the 
subtleties of the schools. He had no more theo- 
logical instruction than the humblest believer. 
He preached from the abundance of his heart ; 
if he found that words were wanting, he would 
give the people his blessing and dismiss them. 
Once, however, when he had to preach before 
Pope Honorius and his cardinals, he carefully 
studied his discourse and learnt it by rote. He 



FRANCIS OF ASSIST. 



321 



had scarcely begun when his memory failed him. 
He then abandoned the sermon he had so care- 
fully prepared, began to improvise, and found 
much more impressive words. He gesticulated 
with his hands and feet as though on the point of 
taking flight ; yet it never occurred to anyone that 
he was ridiculous, although his friend, the Cardinal 
of Ostia, was silently praying that the simplicity 
of such a man might not bring him into contempt. 

As an Italian, he possessed that instinctive 
ability which accomplishes without effort the most 
difficult undertakings. Again and again we wonder 
that he did not come into fatal collision with the 
narrow orthodoxy of his time. His meekness dis- 
armed everyone. Moreover, when a certain degree 
of holiness has been attained, heresy is impossible ; 
for at a certain height dogma no longer exists, and 
there is no ground for controversy. His relations 
with Innocent III. are represented by his bio- 
graphers in different ways, but all do honour to 
his judgment. Associations similar to his — that 
of the ' Pauvres de Lyons,' for instance — had been 
harshly repressed. Religious mendicity, outward 
austerity, were features which called to mind the 
Cathari, and excited to the utmost the suspicions 
of the higher clergy. Marvels of honest simpli- 
city were required to avoid striking on that rock. 
As for the mighty of the world, Francis never 
knew them. His policy was most simple. He 
sometimes dreamt of seeing the emperor. ' I 
should ask him,' he said, ' for the love of God and 

21 



322 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



for love of me, to publish an edict against catching 
my sisters the larks, or doing them any harm, 
and ordaining that on the holy Christmas night 
he who has an ox or a donkey shall take special 
care of it, and also that the poor shall then be 
abundantly fed from the table of the rich.' 

In his hands everything took a poetical and 
concrete form. He lived in that state of mind 
which creates those primitive images which serve 
as the basis of language and mythology. On a 
winter night, one of his disciples saw him enter 
his garden and make figures pi snow, saying to 
himself: 'Here: this big one is thy wife ; these 
two are thy sons ; these others are thy daughters, 
and these thy man-servant and thy maid-servant. 
Make haste to clothe them, for they are perishing 
with cold. But if that is too much trouble for 
thee, be content to serve the Lord.' All this is 
thousands of years old. For him every idea be- 
came a little drama ; each of his sensations took 
bodily shape and received a sort of external 
realization. 

His followers were like him — slightly unortho- 
dox, very untheological ; they were beggars, un- 
successful poets, women, converted brigands, 
outcasts of all kinds. They were all of a jovial 
humour, and used sometimes to indulge in fits of 
wild mirth, like a holy carnival. Francis cherished 
principles which did not allow much severity in 
the choice of his disciples. He was too kindly 
to be suspicious, or to have what is called know- 



FRANCIS OF ASSIST. 



3^3 



ledge of the world. He made thieves and honest 
men equally welcome. As a rule, the thieves, 
touched by his kindness, became saints ; but 
sometimes their natural propensities reappeared. 
Francis often put confidence in unworthy persons. 
We know the history of that Elias of Cortona 
who was his confidant and successor. He was an 
intriguer who, both before and after the saint's 
death, played a most equivocal part. Francis 
had a regard for him, just because he was so 
unlike him. Elias was a consummate politician 
and an able administrator. The holy man, 
dazzled by the qualities in which he was himself 
deficient, made Elias his right hand, and his last 
blessing rested on the head of an impostor, who 
gave a very strange direction to the pious work. 
It is true that without Elias it is questionable 
whether it would ever have succeeded. It was he 
who brought the too lofty ideal of the founder 
within the limits of possibility, and accommodated 
it to human weakness. The first rule, written by 
Francis's own hand, and which was believed to 
be an inspiration received by him on the moun- 
tain, enforced absolute poverty. This did not suit 
Elias. He destroyed the manuscript, of which he 
was the guardian, and pretended to have acci- 
dentally lost it. He represented that element of 
charlatanism without which (such is the stupidity 
of men) it seems that no great popular cause can 
prosper. M. Hase thinks, and I am quite of his 
opinion, that the stigmata, which entitled St. 



324 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



Francis to an exceptional rank in the Christian 
heaven, were invented by Elias. 

The discussion relating to the stigmata is 
perhaps the most interesting part of M. Hase's 
book. This miracle, the greatest in the history 
of the mediaeval Church, is also remarkable for 
being attested by contemporary witnesses. Not 
only is it referred to by Thomas de Celano, the 
'Three Companions,' and St. Bonaventura (though 
with important variations) ; not only is it men- 
tioned in passages from writers not belonging to 
the Order, whose authenticity cannot be doubted, 
and which were written only five or six years after 
the saint's death, but we have also a decisive 
document. Elias, who for the last six months 
before the death of St. Francis never left him for 
an instant, in whose arms he expired, and who 
from that moment ruled the Order in his stead — 
Elias, almost in the presence of the corpse, wrote 
a circular letter to inform the brethren in France of 
the patriarch's demise. In that document, which 
was preserved in the Convent of Valenciennes, 
and which Wadding transcribed from a copy, 
Elias speaks of the 'new miracle that took place 
on the body of the saint a short time before his 
death,' and describes the miracle conformably 
with the other texts, though rather more timidly. 
It is, therefore, impossible to think here of a 
legendary elaboration, a tardy rumour arising 
from the wish to conform the life of Francis 
of Assisi to that of his divine model. No : on 



FRANCIS OF ASSIST. 



325 



the very day of St. Francis's death, his stigmata 
were spoken of. There is no proof of their 
having been mentioned previously, so that we are 
almost compelled to conclude either that Elias 
invented the whole story, thinking that it would 
only reach Assisi after the interment of the body, 
or that he himself inflicted the sacred marks on 
the corpse, which was left a whole night in his 
care.* 

This second hypothesis is not devoid of pro- 
bability. Immediately after death the body was 
seen at Assisi by thousands of persons: for many 
years it was the chief object of interest to Umbria, 
to the popes, to the whole of Christendom. It 
would have been very dangerous to rest such a belief 
on a fact capable of being contradicted. It is 
certain that the interment of the corpse was singu- 
larly hurried ; the saint died on the Saturday 
evening, and on the Sunday morning his body 
was carried first to the Convent of Santa Clara, 
and then to the Cathedral of Assisi. Contrary to 
Italian custom, the coffin was closed ; it had to 
be opened to enable Clara and her virgins to kiss 
the patriarch's hand, through the little window 
where the nuns receive the Holy Sacrament. The 
sequel is still stranger. On the removal of the 
remains, which took place on Holy Saturday in the 

8 Doubts arose as early as the thirteenth century : ' An ftia 
ftiissetillnsio, sive suomm fratrum simulate, intentio? These 
words may be read in the 1 Le"gende Doree ' of Jacques de 
Voragine. 



326 NEW STUDIES OE RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 

year 1239, t° their final resting-place in the great 
basilica at Assisi, built for that purpose within 
the three years and a half following the saint's 
death, we see again the hand of Elias. That artful 
personage seems to take precautions lest anyone 
should see the corpse. The people wanted to 
know, at any cost, if, as it was affirmed, the 
body really preserved its appearance of life ; they 
were still more anxious to touch the stigmata. 
This was forbidden ; the refusal occasioned a 
fearful riot, for which Elias was held responsible. 
It is a tradition in the Order that Elias carried 
off the corpse, and buried it secretly in a part of 
the church to be known only to the General. 
This prompt and strange disappearance leads us 
to suppose that there was some powerful reason 
for withholding the holy man's corpse from the 
sight of the public. What seems most probable 
is that the body bore marks which, with a little 
credulity, might pass for the sacred stigmata, but 
which would not have borne a close examination. 
Many circumstances confirm this supposition. 
A few days before his death, the saint had to 
undergo cauterization. It was then that he 
exclaimed, ' My brother fire, the Lord made thee 
useful and beautiful ; be thou gentle to me in this 
hour.' It is quite possible that traces of these 
cauterizations, found by Elias on the corpse, 
suggested the fraud to him, and saved him the 
trouble of committing it with his own hands. 
If it is true that the Church of the Portiuncula 



FRANCIS OF ASSIST. 



327 



possesses the saint's heart, the wound in the side 
also finds a natural explanation in the opera- 
tions which must have been performed after 
death. 

We ought to read in M. Hase's work the impos- 
ing legends which constantly arose from that 
strange tomb. Underneath the two splendid 
churches raised one upon the other, Umbrian 
imagination built a third, yet larger and more 
beautiful. There, in his doubly subterranean 
shrine, surrounded by lighted tapers, St. Francis 
awaits the day of judgment. He stands on the 
marble altar, untouched by corruption ; his hands 
crossed, his five wounds dripping with blood. With 
eyes raised to heaven, he prays for men.* Some 
privileged persons, who were at prayer in the 
lower church, warned by earthquakes, saw the 
ground open, and were enabled to descend. W 7 ild 
stories were spread abroad. Paul V. forbade, on 
pain of excommunication, all search for the holy 
tomb. In 1818 this wonderful legend was destroyed. 
The General of the Franciscans, authorized by 
Pius VII., caused excavations to be made. The 

' He lies there under the great altar, as tradition tells us, 
but no one knows the precise spot of his grave ; and a mys- 
terious legend has crept about, whispered in the twilight for 
ages, that far underneath, lower even than the subterranean 
church, the great saint, erect and pale, with sacred drops of 
blood upon his five wounds, and an awful silence round him, 
waits, rapt in some heavenly meditation, for the moment when 
he, like his Lord, and with his Lord, shall rise again.'— Oli- 
phant's ' Francis of Assisi.'— Translator's Note. 



323 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



skeleton of St. Francis was said to have been 
discovered in a stone sarcophagus, under the high 
altar. The splendid ideal cathedral was then 
shattered like a glass, and a miserable little sub- 
terranean chapel in the worst style took its place. 

Who will give us a complete account of the 
first century of Franciscan history ? No popular 
revolution was ever subjected to more regular 
laws. We should see, after the death of the 
saint, his mission rent asunder, if I may say so, 
by two contrary parties : the one faithful to the 
master's ideal, anxious to regenerate the world 
through poverty, ending in 1254 in the bold 
attempt of the ' Eternal Gospel,' and whose chief 
representatives are John of Parma, Pierre-Jean 
d'Olive, Ubertin de Casas, Fra Dolcino, and 
Michel de Cesene; the other, more worldly, more 
easily controlled, and more speedily enlisted by 
the Court of Rome. Two things, then, appear to 
have originated with St. Francis : first, a religious 
Order, which did more evil than good ; secondly, 
a fermentation of popular thought, which gave 
birth to most of the innovators of the second half 
of the Middle Ages. In many respects the ex- 
alted Franciscan school was a forerunner of the 
Reformation ; Friar Elias, Michel of Cesene, 
Marsile of Padua, practised in many cases the 
policy of John Huss and Luther. Like them they 
invited German princes to reform the corrupt 
church, and appealed to civil society against 
the papacy and the episcopate. 



FRANCIS OF ASSIST. 



329 



But the development of these ideas would carry 
us too far. We thank M. Berthoud for his attrac- 
tive little volume, which gives us a complete pic- 
ture of the ' Pater Seraphicus ;' and we hope he will 
keep the promise made in his preface of giving us 
also in French M. Hase's work on St. Catherine 
of Sienna. The religious history of the Middle 
Ages, whose original documents have long since 
been brought to light, will gain by such labours 
the enlightened criticism and nice appreciation 
which has hitherto been wanting to it. 



A MONASTIC IDYL OF THE THIRTEENTH 
CENTURY. 

CHRISTINE OF STOMMELN. 

The learned philologists who, in our own time, 
have endeavoured to experiment upon the. ill-de- 
fined limits of the body and the soul, have justly 
perceived how much light could be thrown on 
their researches by the study of religious en- 
thusiasm. When attentively read and placed in 
the broad light of recent discoveries, the legends 
of ecstatics and accounts of possession receive 
most striking confirmation, or rather, most con- 
clusive commentaries. The facts which they 
relate have been observed, analyzed, almost re- 
produced at will. Of all mediaeval mystics, 
Christine of Stommeln is perhaps the one whose 
life best lends itself to this kind of study. We 
possess her correspondence, and the diary of her 
trials. The good faith of these is beyond sus- 
picion. The patience of the Bollandists,* who 
devoted three hundred folio pages to these 
chimeras, enables us to follow in its most minute 

° 'Acta SS. Tumi/ vol. iv., p. 27oandfol. Compare Quetif 
and Echard, ' Script, ord. Praed./ i., p. 407 and fol. 



A MONASTIC IDYL. 



33i 



details one of the most peculiar pathological cases 
contained in the annals of hallucination, and to 
realize at the same time how the soul may com- 
bine the most pious sentiments and the strangest 
delusions. 

The visionary of whom we now speak was born 
in the year 1242. Her parents were well-to-do 
peasants in the village of Stommeln, about fifteen 
miles north-west of Cologne. Her father's name 
was Henry Brusius, her mother's Hilla. The 
house where she first saw the light is still extant, 
and still bears the name of Brusius-Haus. She 
never learned to write, and could only read her 
Psalter, from which she seems to have acquired 
some knowledge of Latin ; she understood that 
language when it was read slowly.* Her life did 
not differ essentially from that of many other 
saintly women in whom ardent devotion and an 
excitable temperament produced visions, extra- 
ordinary sensations, or stigmata. From her 
earliest years, she, like St. Catherine of Sienna, 
contracted a mystical union with him whom she 
used to call ' her most sweet, most dear, most 
tender spouse.' She was subject to devout trances, 
ecstasies, convulsions, spasms, which lasted a long 
time. She saw Jesus Christ, fancied she felt his 
hand resting on her, and remained for days under 
the impression of that contact. After hearing 

* 'Rogo ut eaquas Christina exponitis ponderetis, ut possit 
intelligere ea quse.dicuntur.' — ' Acta SS.Junii,' vol. iv., p. 418. 



332 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



certain German canticles, she would swoon for 
hours. 

Her patience was soon put to strange proof. 
Demons got possession of her, subjected her to 
most atrocious tortures, filled her imagination with 
hideous images, made her most frightful sugges- 
tions. Father Papebroch wrote a long disserta- 
tion to show that this was not an unusual 
occurrence, and that it often pleased God to 
subject His elect to severe trials. Christine 
remained immovable. She suffered a martyrdom 
without parallel. All the pain of Jesus Christ's 
passion seemed renewed in her person. Plunged 
into uninterrupted meditation on the sufferings of 
Christ, she felt every detail of that appalling 
tragedy. The most characteristic of those details 
— -stigmata on the hands and feet — soon showed 
themselves. Ever since the companions of St. 
Francis of Assisi thought it incumbent on them 
to raise the reputation of their master's holi- 
ness by that strange imitation of Christ, stigmata 
were looked upon as the mark of the highest 
sanctity. Pierre de Dace, of whom we shall 
shortly speak, confessed he dreamed of them 
from his childhood. Half a century earlier, a 
visionary from St. Trond en Hasbain, bearing the 
same Christian name, and surnamed Mirabilis, 
originated another order of ideas : the possibility 
of descending into purgatory and into hell to 
share the torments endured there. It is more than 
probable that Christine of Stommeln was aware of 



A MONASTIC IDYL. 



333 



the reputation of her predecessor, made famous by 
Thomas de Cantimpre. She, perhaps, was in- 
debted to her for her name, having been born, it 
was said, on her fete-day, and she hoped to inherit 
the supernatural privilege by which Christine Mira- 
bilis was enabled to bear the purgatorial pains of 
those she loved. But in her immoderate use of 
that privilege, Christine of Stommeln surpassed 
the saint whom she took as a model, and who had 
been less lavish of such self-devotion. 

Her pretensions were at first unwelcome to her 
family, especially when, acting upon the rights 
given her by her precocious holiness, she left the 
parental roof to lead in Cologne the wandering 
life of a mendicant, which, but for the especial 
protection of heaven, would have been full of 
dangers. She was equally misunderstood in a 
convent which she had joined. They called 
her insane, and smiled at the strange trials to 
which she was subjected by demons. Certainly 
in these days her wonderful diary would be classed 
among the records of nervous diseases. Those 
hideous visions, those alternations of heavenly 
joy and profound sadness, those temptations to 
suicide, those attacks of catalepsy, those total 
perversions of the senses of touch, ending in the 
most horrible sensations — illusions which she mis- 
took for realities — are all the symptoms of diseases 
now classified and carefully studied. The unfor- 
tunate girl who was subject to these paroxysms 
would doubtless have remained unknown, had 



334 NEW STUDIES OE RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



she not, like St. Catherine of Sienna, and like 
Catherine of Emmerich in our days, met with a 
person of talent, able to interpret her feelings and 
create her reputation. 

This was a young Swedish Dominican, a native 
of the Island of Gothland, and who, according to 
the custom of the time, was called ' Petrus de 
Dacia.' Like nearly all young friars at that 
period, his superiors sent him first to Cologne 
and then to Paris to study theology. He was a 
dreamer, inclined to what he himself terms acedia; 
although very pious, he found monastic life op- 
pressively sad. Constant meditation on the 
passion of Jesus Christ, the anguish of the Virgin, 
the sufferings of the martyrs, produced in him 
habitual melancholy. He sought for a soul in 
harmony with his own, and which would realize 
his ideal of holy suffering. On December 21, 1267, 
he saw Christine for the first time, and that day 
decided his whole life. The feelings of joy and 
consolation he then experienced, the ardent devo- 
tion with which he was filled, appeared to him 
supernatural. He felt himself thoroughly changed. 
He marvelled at the miracles which he believed he 
saw. He was touched by the young girl's pensive 
and wandering looks. Christine was friendly and 
at her ease with him. She called him by his name, 
and from the first took him as her spiritual 
brother, treated him with perfect confidence, and 
freely accepted his help. He spent the night 
near her. The pity he experienced on seeing her 



A MONASTIC IDYL. 



335 



blood flow and her wounds re-open increased his 
love. He encouraged her by setting before her 
the example of the saints. Twice the sufferer 
took from beneath her clothes a blood-stained 
nail to which a fragment of her flesh clung. She 
gave the young monk one of these nails. Peter 
preserved it as a relic, on which both his eyes 
and his heart were fixed. ' O felix nox !' he ex- 
claimed ; ' O beata nox ! . . . O dulcis et delec- 
tabilis nox, in qua mihi primum est degustare 
datum quam suavis est Dominus I' 

When he returned to his convent at Cologne, 
Peter still dreamt only of what he had seen at 
Stommeln. He used to curse the night he had 
spent there for being called ' nox ' — word of ill- 
omen — ' eo quod oculis noceat ;' it should have 
been called day. As the Virgin conceived the Son 
of God in the night, so he in this night con- 
ceived God. He spent the following Christmas- 
tide in a sort of ecstasy.* His soul was so full 
of the image of Christine, that no longer could 
he think of God without thinking also of her. 
His reading of the Scriptures only furnished him 
with texts relative to his passion : ' Nox illuminatio 
mea in deliciis meis. . . . Dies quam fecit 
Dominus, exultemus et laetemur in ea.' 

Peter naturally seized every opportunity for 
again meeting the spiritual friend who had 
° ' Quasi parturiens fui, nihilque tunc libentius fecissem 
quam quod tunc cum persona praedicta fuissem. yEstimabam 
enim eo citius illud in fructum pullulaturum, si fuisset calore 
genitricis confortum.' — ' Acta SS.,' vol. above quoted, p. 282. 



336 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



touched his heart. Those opportunities were 
frequent. The Dominicans of Cologne often used 
to call at the village of Stommeln, which was in 
some sort under their religious jurisdiction. Peter 
never absented himself from one of those visits. 
On February 24, 1268, he again saw the person 
who had left on him such a deep impression. 
This was one of her quiet intervals. The cure 
invited her to dine with him. Except in her 
hours of trial, Christine appears to have been a 
pleasing young woman, simple, smiling, amiable, 
innocent, graceful in her movements.* Her re- 
ligious garment, composed of a long veil in which 
she was wrapped from head to foot, became her 
well. Poor Peter was more charmed than ever, 
and his enthusiasm inspired him with a poem 
which is surely one of the most peculiar compo- 
sitions that could be quoted. The author felt 
obliged to write a commentary on it himself, and 
to give ingenious philosophical, theological, and 
mystical interpretations of every word. 

This visit was followed, in the course of 1268 
and the first months of 1269, by several others, 
whose details were carefully recorded by Peter. 
His accounts are extremely frank. In allowing 
himself to profess the tenderest sentiments for his 
spiritual companion, Peter evidently did not sus- 
pect for a moment that he was failing in his duty. 
On her part, Christine showed the fullest confi- 
dence in the young monk. She was then living 
* 1 Decenter affabilem et religiose jucundam.' 



A MONASTIC IDYL. 



337 



with her family, and often used to go to Cologne 
to gain indulgences and see her friend. When- 
ever Peter and his companions came to Stom- 
meln, the cure used to summon Christine ; some- 
times the monks were even invited to the farm 
where her father lived. She used to pour water 
over the hands of the guests and to wait upon 
them ; as for Peter, he used to spend the days 
and nights beside her, praying with her, answer- 
ing her pious questions, sometimes explaining to 
her the hierarchies of Dionysius Areopagite, and 
at other times the degrees of contemplation of 
Richard de Saint-Victor. During her ecstasy he 
used to lay his hand on her, to count her sighs, 
to measure her breathing. These two innocent 
souls related their dreams to each other, and 
stimulated each other's enthusiasm. There is a 
touching account of a walk* they took together, 
in the course of which Christine asked him the 
most simple questions. 

Peter's companions, nearly all Swedes like him- 
self, took no less pleasure in these visits. As we 
have said, the Preaching Friars at Cologne had 
much intercourse with Stommeln. Hence arose 
a little Dominican society, composed of Christine, 
the curate of Stommeln, his sister Gertrude, who 
sang hymns very sweetly, a few pious women in 
the dress of the Beguines, and the venerable Geva, 
Abbess of the Convent of St. Cecilia at Cologne, 
whose country-seat lay at Stommeln. Peter took 
'Acta SS.,' vol. already quoted, p. 287. 

22 



338 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



pleasure and showed some skill in describing these 
different personages. The one he prefers, next to 
Christine, is evidently her intimate friend, Hilla van 
den Berghe. He greatly extols the serenity which 
rilled her mind, the youthful innocence which sur- 
rounded her. ' Her gaiety,' he says, ' was serious, 
and her seriousness full of gaiety. . . . After 
Christine, I never saw a young girl of greater 
purity ; it seemed to me that she did not know 
how to sin, and God is my witness that I never 
saw in her any levity of manner or speech, though 
I have lived with her often and long together, on 
terms of the greatest intimacy.' Old Aleida, who 
had lost her eyesight through weeping, was a 
model of patience. The Abbess Geva, always 
surrounded by young ladies of birth whose educa- 
tion she superintended, was on the best of terms 
with the members of the Order of St. Dominic* 
They formed a devout coterie in which the 
utmost cordiality reigned, and of which Peter 
may be said to have been the soul. The pious 
women loved to hear him discuss the most dim- 
cult theological points, comment on religious 
canticles, or explain by means of the circles of 
Ptolemy the hymn used at the maidens' ser- 
vice, 1 Post te canentes cursitant.' Geva had 
never heard a theological controversy. One day 
she asked Peter and his Italian companion, Aldo- 
brandini, to argue the following question : ' To 
whom did Jesus give the most important trust — 
° ' Mater quasi fratrum erat.' 



A MONASTIC IDYL. 



339 



to St. Peter, to whom He left the care of His 
Church, or to St. John, to whom He confided 
His mother?' Aldobrandini, who belonged to 
St. Peter's patrimony, pleaded in favour of the 
chief of the Apostles ; the Swede contended for 
St. John. 

The Minorites, as might have been expected, 
decried the little society to which they were not 
admitted. They did not even refrain from 
calumny, and their malice against Christine was 
expressed in all sorts of ways. Though she never 
belonged to the Order of St. Dominic, even as 
a tertiary, she was nevertheless affiliated to it by 
letters of fraternity ; her confessors and her confi- 
dants were members of the Order ; she, therefore, 
was virgo devota or dims Prczdicatorum. 

This intercourse, which evidently made all the 
happiness of two simple minds, furnished Peter 
with pictures strikingly truthful, and which would 
have a charm of their own if shockingly realistic 
details did not too often intrude upon spiritual 
effusions, to which, at times, one feels inclined to 
say : 

' Fallit te incautam pietas tua.' 

The tender affection of these saintly persons, the 
naivete with which they describe their pleasure 
in being together, the rare qualities which render 
them amiable to each other, and the little presents 
they exchange, make it all the more painful to 
read the passages devoted to the attacks of the 
devil, which are invariably ridiculous, and which 

22 — 2 



34o NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS IIISTOR Y. 



show an utter want of both taste and tact in 
the good Peter. It is astonishing to learn that 
so faultless a young girl as Christine should have 
imagined such horrible things. Sometimes it is a 
loathsome toad she feels slowly creeping under 
her garments, and sticking its claws into her 
flesh ; she drives it off ; the reptile drops on the 
floor with a noise like the fall of an old worn-out 
boot. At other times she fancies her food changed 
into spiders or toads ; she feels the creatures cold 
in her mouth, and vomits them forth. On various 
occasions she thought a snake was crawling into 
her body and devouring her. Once, this halluci- 
nation lasted for eight whole days, which seemed 
equal to purgatory. The most shocking of those 
episodes is the one which brought Peter of Dacia 
to Stommeln for the ninth time. No pen could 
now be found to transcribe those pages which the 
good old Bolland has copied with a firm hand. 
Other trials, of a still more delicate nature, are 
narrated with the greatest simplicity. In these 
souls, ignorant of modern refinements, the purest 
thoughts were allied with expressions which would 
now be unpardonably coarse. 

Christine usually concealed her stigmata, and 
expressed annoyance when they were spoken of. 
Peter was anxious to see them, and took advan- 
tage of the occasions when the hands of his friend 
appeared from beneath her veil to steal a glimpse 
of them. They generally presented the appear- 
ance of red scars, of the size of a penny-piece, 



A MONASTIC IDYL. 



34* 



superficial and varying in width. Sometimes they 
resembled red crosses ornamented with flowers ; 
sometimes they formed a cross from the arms of 
which sprang two smaller ones. Sometimes also 
the palm of the hand exhibited round the central 
wound fifteen red spots, symmetrically arranged. 
Her feet showed similar wounds, which bled 
frequently. Lastly, her forehead and her heart 
presented also the bleeding impression of the 
wounds of Christ. At the sight of these wonders 
Peter's devotion used to break forth in tears and 
enthusiastic exclamations, and sometimes he would 
resort to innocent frauds in order to procure for 
himself and others the spectacle which filled him 
with rapture. 'An inward feeling,' he says, 
' assured me that the affection I bore to Christine 
came from heaven.' One day, when he supported 
her in his arms during one of her paroxysms, he 
had such a blissful sensation as he never before 
experienced. 

These spiritual delights came to an end about 
Easter in the year 1269. Peter of Dacia was 
ordered by his superiors to start for Paris, there 
to pursue his theological studies. Echard says 
that there he very probably had St. Thomas 
Aquinas as his master. Be this as it may, Peter 
never for a moment forgot his friend during his 
sojourn in Paris. Thus arose a correspondence 
extending from the 10th of May, 1269, when Peter 
arrived in Paris, until the 27th of July, 1270, when 
he left. This correspondence forms one of the 



342 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



most curious records which have reached us of the 
life of mystics in the thirteenth century. Pre- 
served by Peter of Dacia himself, and by Chris- 
tine's friends at Stommeln, then transferred to 
Juliers with her remains, it was copied at a later 
period by Holland. At first Christine wrote 
through the pen of her confessor, Gerard de 
Griffon. No doubt she dictated in German. 
The Latin of these letters is simple, and quite 
different from that of Peter of Dacia. Such 
expressions as mille bene valctc could not have come 
from so elegant a scholar as Peter. 

The separation had been cruel. The first letter 
Peter wrote to his friend is touching, in spite of 
the affectation of pious rhetoric which disfigures 
it.* He hesitates to say what he feels, because 
he cannot express it, and perhaps, also, because he 
ought not to do so. The recollection of the past 
fills him with sadness. f He reminds her of the 
tears she shed at his departure. He regrets that 
he gave way to timidity, that he did not prolong 
his leave-taking from her, that he did not salute 
her more familiarly for the last time. 

Christine's answers are full of tenderness. 

6 ' Carissimae in Virginis filio virgini Christi Christinae, in 
visceribus caritatis in Spiritu Sancto in seternum dilectae.' 
— 'Acta SS.,' vol. already quoted, pp. 299, 300. 

t ' Ouum mihi in memoriam venerunt dies praeteriti in 
quibus in domo Dei ambulabamus, . . . quando interdum, 
licet raro et modice ab ubertate domus Dei inebriabamur et 
torrente voluptatis potabamur . . . . O commutatio lacry- 
mosa, taediosa, laboriosa.' — Ibid, 



A MONASTIC IDYL. 



343 



She had always hoped that his hands would lay 
her in the grave ; she still had many confidences 
to make to him ; her state is worse than ever ; 
she never thinks of him without tears ; she is 
confident of his being faithful to her ; her only 
consolation is to listen to his letters, which she 
preserves carefully until his return. She cannot 
help feeling sad whenever she sees Brother 
Maurice, who accompanied Peter on his last visit 
to Stommeln. On that occasion she also could 
not express all that was in her thoughts ; no one 
can ever fill his place in her heart. Above all, she 
implores him, for the love of God, if he should 
depart from this world, not to leave her long behind, 
an exile. 

The fifth, eighth, ninth, and tenth letters are 
fine examples of mystical literature. Peter en- 
deavours to prove that their mutual affection has 
and must have only God for its object. This 
mysticism does not forbid very ardent expressions. 
* I cannot tell you all,' adds Christine, ' for you 
know how easily I blush.'* Peter rebukes her 
gently in these words : ' Conqueror vobis de 
absentia Dilecti,' which does not prevent his rush- 
ing into transports of metaphysical tenderness.-)- 

Letters from Gerard and Maurice and from the 

* 'Vobis sicut mihi est in corde non possum, propter eru- 
bescentiam quam scitis in me esse, intimare.' — Ibid., p. 307. 

t ' Hoc ideo dico quia non solum diligere sed et diligi me 
sentio. Conjicio enim de quo exierit caritatis fervore et quo 
continebatur verecundiae virginalis pudore, ac si hoc sit quod 
dicitur : Absque es quod intrinsecus latet.' — Ibid., p. 311. 



344 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



cure of Stommeln are added to those of Chris- 
tine and Peter, and increase their interest. Little 
presents, sometimes very simple, very personal, 
are exchanged between these pious persons. The 
amiable Hilla van den Berghe and the good old 
blind Aleida are often mentioned. Maurice tells 
Peter all the gossip of the cure's house. All 
this takes place under the eyes of the superiors, 
who, far from finding fault with it, never write to 
Peter but to give him news of her whom they call 
1 your beloved Christine.' Then Peter would re- 
double his attempts at fine writing, loading his 
artificial style with high-sounding phrases, but 
being truthful and edifying in spite of all. The 
last letter he wrote from Paris, on the state of his 
soul, is full of information respecting religious life 
in the thirteenth century. In Paris he found 
perfect models of piety ; but he suffered from 
great dryness of soul. It was only when saying 
mass that he experienced any real joy: 'Tunc 
nova progenies ccelo demittitur alto : tunc redit 
et virgo. Heu mihi ! dilectissima, quid dixi et 
quid nemimi!' This recalls what Fenelon said of 
St. Augustine : ' In him alone have I found one 
thing of which I will tell you : he is still touching 
even when sarcastic' 

About Easter, 1270, Peter was recalled by his 
superiors to Cologne. He was delayed on his 
way, and did not arrive at Stommeln till the 13th 
of August. At first he only intended to make a 
brief stay there, but it was prolonged, owing to 



A MONASTIC IDYL. 



345 



several incidents which he considered providential. 
The same simplicity and mutual confidence marked 
his relations with Christine. She used to provide 
for his expenses, and had saved up eight Cologne 
sous to buy him a tunic, of which he was sorely 
in need. The devil stole them. On the 29th 
September, Peter paid a last visit to Stommeln. 
' Brother Peter,' said Christine, ' as thou art about 
to leave me, tell me a great secret. If thou knowest 
it, tell me the reason of our mutual affection.' 
Peter, taken by surprise, hesitated, and answered 
vaguely, ' God is the author of all affection and 
friendship.' 1 No,' she said ; ' I have doubts as 
to that answer. I wish to know if thou hast not 
received any warning, any special grace in this 
respect ?' Peter was embarrassed, and still re- 
mained silent. Christine added, ' I know that 
the moment of our separation and of my desolation 
approaches — that is why I am about to reveal to 
thee a secret which, but for that, I should not have 
disclosed. Do you* remember how, when you 
came to see me for the first time, with Brother 
Walter, of pious memory, towards twilight, I had 
a cushion placed between you and me, upon 
which I reclined?' — 'Yes, I recollect it.' — 'At 
that time the Lord appeared to me. I saw my 
beloved, and I heard him say, " Christine, observe 
carefully the man beside whom thou art reclining, 
because he is, and will always be, thy friend. 

The singular and plural are thus interchanged in the 
original. 



346 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



Know, moreover, that he shall be by thy side in 
everlasting life." This is, Brother Peter, the 
reason why I love thee and put such confidence in 
thee. I reveal this to thee now, though I never 
meant to do so, because we shall soon be sepa- 
rated ; and I do not know whether we shall ever 
see one another again in this life. I therefore 
tell thee this that it may give thee consolation/ 

Peter departed on the following day. All the 
little society of Stommeln started the good Swede 
on his way. The account he gives of the 
separation is very natural. His companion, a 
Swede like himself, was moved to tears. From 
that day he became Christine's devotee, and gave 
to her his rosary, which he had worn for four years. 

Peter had often asked Christine to put in 
writing an account of her feelings and trials. She 
had complied, through the pen of the curd of 
Stommeln. On Peter's departure, she gave him 
the papers, and he took them away. These con- 
fessions, which the Swede intended as materials for 
writing Christine's life, have been preserved, and 
show that, in spite of her unsettled imagination, her 
soul remained pure.* The most curious page is 
that where Christine describes de visu purgatory 
and hell.t Her description is rather summary, 

° ' Carissime pater, rogo vos, intuitu Dei et suae passionis, 
quatenus ea quae vobis narrare propono de arnica vestra 
diebus vitas meae nunquain alicui homini reveletis.' — 'Acta 
SS.,' same vol. as heretofore, p. 276. 

t ' Malleos percutientes, caloris paenam et frigoris.' 



A MONASTIC IDYL. 



347 



and does not equal that of Christine de Saint- 
Trond, which has been regarded as a forerunner of 
the ' Divine Comedy.' 

The journey to Sweden was long and difficult. 
It took place in the depth of winter, and the cold 
that year was intense. Two of Peter's letters 
have been preserved ; one dated from Minden, 
the other from Halmstad, in the Halland. They 
are both beautiful, and make us much regret the 
loss of other letters written during the same 
journey. The sentiment they express is elevated; 
we find no trace of superstition in them. They 
deserve to be quoted as models of the ecclesias- 
tical Latin of the thirteenth century, which has 
a charm of its own ; a gentle sadness, or rather a 
melancholy gaiety fills them. Peter was credulous, 
though honest and affectionate. The promises of 
Scripture and the mystic joy of reciprocated love 
make him oblivious of the fatigues of the way. 
The two pious friends have but one wish : to die 
together, not to survive each other even by a day. 

On his arrival in Sweden, 6th February, 1271, 
Peter was appointed lecturer at Skenninge (dio- 
cese of Linkoping). He wrote many letters to 
Christine ; but two years elapsed before he 
received one from her. Christine's letters had 
to pass through the Dominican Convent at 
Cologne, and were often, it seems, detained. 
Those of Peter were also much delayed ; and 
to reach Stommeln, sometimes passed through 
Paris. At the Chapter of Aarhuus (1272), Peter 



348 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



received at last four of his friend's melancholy 
letters. The cure of Stommeln acted as Chris- 
tine's secretary at that time. She is now quite 
alone ; for, though the brothers are full of kind- 
ness towards her, she has not found a heart like 
that of Peter, compassionate to her infirmities 
and understanding her confidences. She lives 
on his letters, which she has read to her con- 
stant!}', and waters with her tears. The demon 
tempts her in the most dreadful manner. The 
greatest suffering she has experienced was when 
for eight days the evil spirit suggested to her this 
fearful thought : ' Brother Peter is dead ; he has 
been killed by robbers.' In one of his letters 
Peter has dared to tell her, ' You will forget me.' 
Does he not know that Christine's sole hope is 
to share eternal life with him ? If only she 
could write to him herself, and tell him secrets 
she can reveal to him alone. She is quite sure 
that she has all his heart.* Only on great occa- 
sions does she wear the dress he sent her ; that 
dress must last all her life. He has been so kind 
to her! But now what a difference ! 'I impose 
silence upon my mouth,' she says ; ' for I find 
nobody like you — to tell the truth, I do not care 
to look.' During his journey she was constantly 
noticing the wind, thinking of his fatigues, of the 

° '. . . Me solam esse vestri. Sed heu ! dilectissime, non 
est sicut heri et nudius tertius, quando cum fratre Aldcbran- 
dino mecum in Ossindorp dignabanimi ire, exhibentes mul- 
tam et acceptissimam consolationem.' 



A MONASTIC IDYL. 



349 



reception he would meet with. If she should live 
after his death, he must try to find a faithful 
friend for her, or, better still, ask of God that she 
may not survive him. To enter the kingdom of 
heaven together, leaning on her beloved — what a 
beautiful dream ! If possible, he must visit her 
once more : unless he does, many wonderful 
secrets will remain unknown to everyone. 

' Caro, cariori, carissimo fratri . . . Christina 
sua tota.' Such is the beginning of another 
melancholy letter, bearing date 1272. All her 
friends are dead or have left Cologne. Gerard de 
Griffon has been appointed prior at Coblentz. 
Her father has been ruined, and lives at Cologne 
in poverty ; her mother broke her arm when going 
to see him, and nearly died. Christine is alone in 
the farm ; the wounds in her feet prevent her 
wearing shoes ; she is cold, and suffers much. 

Peter consoles her ; he calls her ' Cor suum et 
animse dimidium,' and once more indulges in 
metaphysics. He too has sorrows ; he meets 
with many difficulties in his Order. But God has 
given him new spiritual daughters, some of whom 
wear the habit of his Order; others that of the 
Beguines ; others again lay dresses. One of 
them, seventy years old, is favoured with super- 
natural gifts. Another leads a life as full of 
suffering and ecstasy as that of Christine. She 
also sometimes displays stigmata and the signs of 
the passion. There is not the slightest trace of 
jealousy between those two saintly persons. ■ She 



35o NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



resembles her father, 1 writes the Dominican, ' for 
she loves you intensely. She calls you her sister, 
because I told her you were my daughter.'* The 
Swedish ecstatic wishes to see Christine, and 
Peter hopes some day to see his three miraculous 
friends in the same Swedish convent. He dreams 
unceasingly of his paradise at Stommeln. Lost 
as he is in a wild country, t deprived of communi- 
cation with the world, he feels lonely. He re- 
quests Christine to greet for him ' all the Hillas,' 
all his old friends. % 

Christine's misfortunes increase towards 1276. 
Her father dies; she becomes very poor; the 
world forsakes her ; the farm has been sold ; the 
house where they lived together is falling into 
ruins. She has no one to whom she can tell her 
secrets. Ah, if she could only reveal them to 
Peter before her death ! Peter has invited her to 
enter a convent of Dominican nuns in Sweden. 
She dares not start until Peter advises her to do so 
by word of mouth. These sad tidings go to Peter's 
heart. At any cost he will see her ; the year shall 
not close without his having had that happiness. 
She must come. He has six spiritual daughters, 
with whom she will live, and who will supply all 
her wants. § 

i In hoc optime patrizat quod vos miro affectu diliget. 
Vocat autem vos semper sororem, eo quod dixi ei vos meam 
esse nliam.' 

f 1 In profundo terrarum.' 

% 1 Omnes amicos meos antiquos.' 

§ His expressions are as burning as ever : ' Ut evidens 



A MONASTIC IDYL. 



351 



The house has come down at last (1277) ; the 
cure is dead ; his mother accuses Christine of 
having misappropriated his property. Peter can 
no longer resist. It seems that, about that time, 
he had become lecturer in the island of Gothland, 
his own country, no doubt at Wisby (1278). 
' Amor improbus omnia vincit/ he constantly says 
to himself, and in 1279 he obtains permission to 
revisit Cologne under divers pretexts, the chief 
being to obtain some of those relics of which the 
religious metropolis of Germany was the inex- 
haustible emporium. His health was weak, yet 
he, who usually swooned several times if he walked 
a mile, now performs an enormous journey without 
fatigue. The surprise he caused to the pious 
women at Stommeln by taking them unawares is 
cleverly.described. It was the 15th of September, 
1279, a t the hour of mass. Many persons had 
already forgotten him ; the wife of the bell-ringer 
asked his name and country. On hearing them, 
she rushed out, crying hastily, * Christine, Chris- 
tine, come quick !' Christine's delight, her 
ecstasy when, after vespers, Peter preached from 
a text she had herself selected, may be easily 
imagined. She came out of her ecstasy only to 



mihi fiat quoniam germani sibi mutuo sint Christus et Chris- 
tina, amicus et arnica, spousus et sponsa ut in hoc certitu- 
dinaliter probem ex quo fonte procedat dilectio qua vos diligo 
et a vobis diligor. Carissima, aestimo quod dulcedinem con- 
solationis quam littera vestra continebat solus sensit qui 
recepit, quia sola novit quse misit.' 



352 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



say twice, 1 Let us love God for all His goodness.' 
She was then living with the Recluses or Beguines. 
She thought she must take certain precautions 
either because she wished to prevent slander, or 
because she was beset by one of her usual scruples, 
and affected, in her ecstasy, not to recognise her 
friend. 'Brother Peter,' said she, ' if thou wilt 
speak of God, it is well ; if not, do what thou hast 
to do as quickly as possible and depart, otherwise 
we shall soon grow tired of thee.' This strange 
behaviour was much talked about. She pretended 
next day to have no recollection of it. 

Peter remained three days with her, after which 
he went to visit his convent at Cologne. Gerard 
de Griffon was then sub-prior. He still loved 
Christine. She was the only subject of conversa- 
tion between him and Peter. On the 30th of 
September, the latter returned to Stommeln ; and 
the Beguines gave a great dinner,* at which all 
the confraternity was present. They spoke of the 
miracle of St. Agnes, as it is related in the 
' Golden Legend, 't of the ring given and accepted 
by the image of the saint as a token of her mystical 
union. This greatly excited Christine's imagina- 
tion. She asserted that a similar thing had hap- 
pened to her. ' I am,' she said to Peter, ' going 
to tell thee a secret I never before revealed to any 
living being. From my childhood I knew thee in 
spirit ; I could discern thy face and thy voice, 

e Pulchrum prandium. 
t Chapter xxiv. 



A MONASTIC IDYL. 



353 



and I loved thee so much that I often feared my 
affection might become a temptation to me. 
Never could I separate the thought of thee from 
the object of my prayers. I prayed for thee as 
much as for myself, and in all my trials thou wert 
my companion. Having long asked God if these 
feelings came from Him, I was assured that they 
did on the day of St. Agnes ; because, during cele- 
bration, a ring was openly given me and put on 
my finger. And when thou salutedst me for the 
first time, I knew thy voice and distinctly re- 
cognised thy face. Many other proofs w r ere 
divinely given me which modesty prevents my 
revealing to thee. For instance, I often received 
the distinct impression of a ring.' Indeed, the 
cure (then dead) had spoken of having seen that 
ring, not painted on the skin, but impressed into 
the flesh with various ornaments, sometimes in 
the form of a cross, sometimes with the name of 
Jesus Christ in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin cha- 
racters. The schoolmaster testified to the same 
thing. 

On the 21st of October, Peter returned to 
Stommeln for a farewell visit. He was literally 
laden with relics. The parting supper took place 
on the evening of the 24th. Christine was not 
so melancholy as usual ; she even seemed gay. 
While saying her vespers under a tree, she had 
been assured by Christ Himself that Peter's 
journey would be safely accomplished. ' I have 
planted your mutual love in me, and in me will I 

23 



354 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



preserve it,' the Saviour added.* On the follow- 
ing day, after mass, they dined. Peter pro- 
nounced an address upon ' Convertere, anima 
mea, in requiem tuam, quia Dominus benefecit 
tibi,' and they parted, after recommending each 
other to God. 

The letters begin again from that time. From 
Liibeck Peter writes three letters at least; one to 
Christine, another to John the schoolmaster, the 
third to Hilla van den Berghe. He congratulates 
the schoolmaster on the favour God has bestowed 
on him in confiding to him his tabernacle and his 
spouse. He compares him with St. John, to 
whom Mary was entrusted. With what delight, 
if the Order would allow it, would he change 
places with John ! He begs to hear of all the 
marvels which John may witness. To himself, 
Sweden will be a land of exile ; he will be like 
Adam driven from Paradise. His letter to Hilla 
van den Berghe is charming. He pays her a 
passing compliment on her virtue and simplicity. 

From Calmar (January 3rd, 1280) Peter writes 
again to Christine, to John, and to the Beguines 
of Stommeln. The letter to Christine is more 
ardent in its mysticism than ever.t People evi- 

' Ego amorera vestrum mutuum in me plantavi ; et in me 
eum conservabo.' 

f They both can say ' Diligo et diligor.' After in scholastic 
fashion putting to himself the question : 'Diligenda est ergo 
Christina?' Peter enumerates the reasons, ' quia expressa est 
Christi similitudo ... In verbis ejus Christus auditur . . . 
In praesentia ejus Christi figura cernitur ... In convictu 



A MONASTIC IDYL. 



355 



dently used to smile at his transports. 1 Well,' he 
says, ' the world may rail at me, slander me, con- 
demn me ; it will not prevent me from loving the 
spouse of my God, from loving in her, her spouse, 
himself.'* There is no danger of his loving 
Christine more than Christ ; for it is the rule that 
' the cause of a thing is greater than the thing 
itself.' t Christine has led him to honour, to love, 
to enjoy Christ. Peter congratulates John on his 
having been appointed ' servant, secretary, and 
chaplain to the spouse of God.' It would have 
made him so happy to be chosen to fill even one 
of those offices ! 

Peter resumes his functions as lecturer at 
Wisby. Christine's letters in the years 1280-82 
relate demoniacal trials still more cruel than be- 
fore. John the schoolmaster is her secretary, and 
sometimes describes these strange occurrences in 
his own language. The demons torment Christine 
incredibly ; one day they cut off her head, which 
does not prevent her from triumphing over them, 
and enduring purgatory for the cure. Far from 
combating these follies, the schoolmaster encour- 
ages her in what we can only call her madness. 

ejus Christus sentitur, et (ut cuncta brevi verbo concludamus) 
ecce Christus in ea omnia factus est vel potius omnia fecit.' 
— 'Acta SS./ vol. already quoted, pp. 328 and fol., 416, 
417. 

' Clamet ergo mundus, irrideat, detrahat, irascatur et 
dehortetur, sponsam tamen Domini mei ex intimo corde meo 
diligam propter sponsum ipsum.' 

f ' Propter quod unumquodque, ipsum magis.' 

23—2 



356 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



The poor girl has other more serious cares : she 
wishes to place* her brother Seguin in the Order 
of St. Dominic. Everybody is poor at Stommeln. 
The schoolmaster has lost his pupils ; he is 
starving. He is about to be ordained priest ; 
Peter must send from Sweden all the requisites 
for his first mass. Christine entreats Peter to 
come again. Nothing goes right without him at 
Stommeln. What is to become of her if the 
schoolmaster is obliged to go away ? They are 
both thinking of leaving the country and joining 
the Dominicans in Sweden. The Dominicans of 
Cologne help them, though not willingly. Seguin 
enters the Order on the 29th of August, 1282 ; 
his admission required Peter's most active inter- 
vention. The schoolmaster and his brother are 
also very anxious to be admitted. But, in the 
eyes of the chiefs of the Order, practical reasons 
had more weight than the spiritual vocation of 
the candidates. ■ They must learn some useful 
trade, without which their admission is very 
doubtful.' 

Peter warmly encourages Christine's wish to 
start for Sweden. A Swedish gentleman, a friend 
of the Dominicans, had two sisters, who both 
wore the habit of St. Dominic. They were long 
the only nuns of the Order in Sweden. One of 
them was named Christine ; she is dead. Let 
Christine of Stommeln come and fill her place. 
To remove all doubts, the good Swede writes to 
* Collocare. 



A MONASTIC IDYL. 



357 



Christine himself. Two sisters, both Beguines, 
offer to share their house with her. The Domi- 
nican convent is definitely founded. Peter re- 
doubles his entreaties ; Berthold, Prior of Wisby, 
joins in them. Christine has her prebend assured; 
she may wear what dress she likes, either the one 
she wears now or that of the Order. Peter had 
evidently succeeded in inculcating all his Swedish 
brethren with his ideas of Christine's saintliness. 
At Cologne, the Superiors seem to think that this 
canonization of living people is rather dangerous. 
One of the letters addressed to her from the con- 
vent bears a superscription which one might be 
tempted to suppose ironical : ' Christine? in Stutn- 
bele, f rater . . . salutem mentis et corporis.' It is 
also noteworthy that Peter's letters are much 
more simply addressed than they used to be. 

Peter, appointed Prior of Wisby in the close of 
1283, obtains permission for Christine's brother 
to be sent to his convent. In 1285, he despairs 
of ever seeing her again ; he has a fever. All 
communication is stopped, war having broken out 
between the island of Gothland and the Continent. 
In 1286 he again begins to hope. He tells Chris- 
tine that he is about to start with his provincial 
for the general chapter to be held (at Bordeaux) in 
the following year. He will visit Stommeln on 
his way back. He hopes to be there about the 
24th of June. His letter expresses some fears. 
The reserve Christine sometimes showed on his 
last visit had, it seems, weighed upon his heart. 



358 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



It is more than probable that Peter made his 
journey to Bordeaux in 1287. On the 1st of June 
of that year we find him at Louvain. From that 
town he writes to his friends at Stommeln. This 
journey, undertaken to console them, has enfeebled 
him; he now wants them to console him. He 
limps badly with the left foot, his strength is 
exhausted ; but all this does not prevent his 
hoping to see them in the course of the following 
week. 

No doubt he carried out his intention, though 
we have no precise proof of it. As it is certain 
that he returned to Wisby, we can hardly suppose 
that he omitted to visit a spot which lay on 
his road and was so dear to him. The letter 
announcing Peter's death, written by Brother 
Folquin, his constant companion, and sent from 
Wisby to Christine, was found in the correspon- 
dence she left behind ; but the date of the year is not 
given. Echard, who has corrected Papebroch's 
errors relating to this period, believes it was 1288. 
The good Folquin asks Christine to take him 
henceforth as her intimate friend* in Peter's 
place, and to confide all her secrets to him. We 
possess no more of these documents, stamped 
with such truthfulness in spite of the strange 
aberrations they relate. What Christine dreaded 
as the worst of all her trials occurred. She sur- 
vived her friend many years, since she did not die 
till 1312. 

Familiarem. 



A MONASTIC IDYL. 



359 



From the first, Peter intended to write a life of 
Christine, for the edification of the Christian 
world — partly as an eye-witness, partly compiled 
from her letters to him, and partly from the 
accounts sent him by the schoolmaster. A first 
attempt, a kind of preliminary book, entitled ' De 
virtutibus sponsas Christi Christinas,' was sent by 
him to Stommeln. The schoolmaster read it to 
Christine. It is a vague composition, scarcely 
intelligible, bearing no indication of time, place, 
or person, relating no more to Christine than 
to any other ecstatic, so that the Bollandists 
thought it useless to publish it. The most curious 
thing about it is that Christine did not recognise 
the portrait of herself. ' You must know,' says the 
schoolmaster, ' that I have read to her from begin- 
ning to end the part you sent me, in which you 
speak figuratively of your daughter Christine : 
she w 7 as wonderfully comforted by it, and listened 
with so much simplicity that she exclaimed in 
wonder: "But he never spoke to me of that 
person!"' John asks anxiously for the rest. 
Christine herself says that she had it read to her 
twice, and it gave her great pleasure. ' But what 
surprises me,' she adds, ' is that in all these years 
of intimacy, you never said one word to me of 
this girl, this friend.'* 

* ' Et supra modum admiror, quum mihi tarn multis tem- 
poribus familiaris fueritis, quare mihi de hac filia seu arnica 
nunquam mentionem aliquam fecistis.' — 'Acta SS.,' vol. 
above quoted, pp. 335, 337, 343, 418, 425. 



360 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



Fortunately, Peter did not rest satisfied with 
this unsatisfactory attempt. He wrote a minute 
and accurate account of his visits to Stommeln, 
inserting all the letters at his disposal. This 
important narrative does not go farther than 1282. 

In the meantime, by Peter's advice, John the 
schoolmaster, on his part, wrote a description of 
the marvels related to him by Christine, and which 
he believed he had witnessed. John had not Peter's 
high mind and purity of heart. He lived on the 
poor girl, and made capital out of a friendship 
which brought him into contact with a wealthy 
religious Order. The Bollandists had the courage 
to publish this tedious composition, which it is 
impossible to read, and painful even to glance 
at. In it Christine is subjected to the tortures of 
purgatory countless times.* Still more innumer- 
able are the demons which beset her. Once the 
schoolmaster reckons their number at trecenti et 
tria millia, that is, three thousand three hundred. 
Papebroch writes in the margin ' three hundred 
and three thousand, 't which is too many. The 
tortures inflicted on her by serpents and toads 
are described with revolting realism. The account 
of the demon of the acedia is, however, not devoid 
of interest. A squalid demon appears to her ; to 
his rags hang little phials full of poison. ' I am,' 
says he, ' the demon who entraps the greatest 

'Acta SS., 5 vol. already quoted, pp. 391, 392, 393, 394, 
400, 454. 

t I did., pp. 348, 385. 



A MONASTIC IDYL. 



36i 



number of monks. I pour over them the contents 
of my little phials, and, filled with dislike for religious 
life, their appetite for earthly things is excited. 
This has just happened to thy brother, Seguin.' 

So long as Christine's sufferings are confined 
to herself there is nothing in them to surprise 
those conversant witft the symptoms of nervous 
disease in women. The peculiarity of the illusions 
produced by such disease is to transform inward 
sensations into phenomena supposed to be external. 
But it is another thing when those strange stories 
relate to so-called facts, to events of the time. 
What are we to think, for instance, of the in- 
credible story of seven brigands whom Christine 
is said to have converted by means of prodigies 
which are supposed to have been witnessed by the 
whole country ? Psychological and pathological 
explanations no longer suffice to account for such 
stories, and we must confess that the dull con- 
science of those troubled times admitted a laxity 
in the matter of truth-telling which could not be 
tolerated by the enlightened and rigorous con- 
science of our days. 

The schoolmaster's narrative ends in November, 
1286, almost at the time when Christine received 
Peter's letter informing her of his intended journey 
in 1287. Very likely this news interrupted John's 
narrative. What could be the use of writing 
stories which Christine herself would soon be able 
to relate ? If, as Echard believes, Peter revisited 
Stommeln in the summer of 1287, we must also 



362 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



admit, with that learned critic, that he received 
from Christine and took to Sweden the manuscript 
dictated at his request and for his use. 

Besides the letters given by Peter of Dacia in 
the account of his relations with Christine, several 
addressed to her are to be found in the Juliers 
manuscript. We have analyzed them, following, 
as much as possible, their chronological order. 
We will here point out a letter from Brother 
Aldobrandini, which, though written in the involved 
style of a student of rhetoric, is yet interesting, and 
gives a better idea than any of the others of the 
childish naivete of the little society at Stommeln. 
A letter from Brother Maurice, dated Paris, 
deserves also to be quoted. The poor brother is 
quite lost in the house in the Rue St. Jacques. 
The change of diet has been very trying to him : 
' I am now obliged to devour rotten eggs, given 
out more stingily than the eggs of Eifel which 
our brothers at Cologne eat. Oh ! when I think 
of the fresh eggs and vegetables we used to eat, 
while, seated round the saucepan, we watched the 
meat boiling ! How many times I go back in 
spirit to that Egypt of Stommeln ! And my com- 
panions are like me : we would all go there in the 
body, even if Stommeln were ten miles farther 
from Paris than it is from Cologne !' He knows 
he is watched ; he dares not avow the friendship 
he has for her, ' for fear of the Jews.'* He 

An allusion to the propter metum judcBorum^ often re- 
peated in the Gospel according to St. John. 



A MONASTIC IDYL. 



363 



cautions her not to show his letter to anyone, lest, 
through ill-natured interpretations, it might bring 
a severe reprimand on the writer. He adds, in 
a postscript : 1 Tell Dame Beatrix to prepare fresh 
eggs and cherry jam for the friars on their way back 
from the chapter, and to remember me, seeing that 
she is so well provided for amongst the Beguines.'* 

We must also mention a letter from Brother 
Folquin, specifying the little presents he is send- 
ing from Sweden to Stommeln. They consist of 
horn spoons, some black, others white with black 
handles. A pious letter, addressed to Christine by 
a young English monk, shows that she inspired 
the same feelings in very different persons. 

This collection of documents, in Christine's 
possession at Stommeln, passed, along with her 
body, into the hands of the Canons of Juliers. 
There Bolland copied them almost entirely; Pape- 
broch published them in spite of their prolixity, 
and added to them another ' Life of Christine,' 
composed by a monk of the Dominican Convent 
at Cologne, between 1312 and 1325, perhaps in 
view of her canonization. This life does not 
throw any fresh light on the original papers. It 
merely informs us that the trials of the saint 
ended in 1288. According to the author, this 
coincided with an event famous in that country, 
the battle of Woringen, fought between Siffroi, 
Archbishop of Cologne, and John, Duke of 
Brabant (June 5, 1288). Christine's intercession 
'Acta SS.,' vol. already referred to, pp. 410, 412. 



364 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



influenced, they say, the issue of that battle ; she 
saved the souls of many of the combatants by 
taking upon herself the torments they had de- 
served. After this she lived in perfect peace. The 
fact that she was then forty-six years old, and 
had probably heard of Peter's death, no doubt did 
more to cure her than the battle of Woringen. 
By his simple admiration, Peter unintentionally 
encouraged a state fatal to the recovery of his 
friend. 

The volume of the Bollandists containing these 
curious records appeared in time for Father 
Echard to read them, and to submit them to 
acute criticism in the first volume of the 'Scrip- 
tores ordinis Praedicatorum.' He points out 
several erroneous suppositions into which Pape- 
broch had been led by imperfect acquaintance 
with the private history of the Dominican Order. 

Christine lived for twenty-four years in the 
exercise of a piety less extraordinary than that to 
which she owed her celebrity. The advanced 
age she attained shows that her excitable tem- 
perament at last grew calm. She died on the 
6th of November, 1312. She was quietly interred 
in the cemetery at Stommeln, but soon a rumour 
of miracles performed by her intercession attracted 
attention to her grave. About 1315 or 1320, her 
body was exhumed and placed in the church 
at Stommeln. In 1342 it was transferred to 
Nideggen, on the Roer ; and, about 1584, to 
Juliers, where it still rests in a little mausoleum 



A MONASTIC IDYL. 



365 



at the entrance of the choir. Her name is still 
held in veneration, although the first steps towards 
her canonization, taken shortly after her death, 
were never followed up. It was through the 
stigmata of St. Catherine of Sienna that the Order 
of St. Dominic compensated itself for the stigmata 
of Francis of Assisi. Christine is commemorated, 
not on the anniversary of her death, but on the 
22nd of June, perhaps the day when her remains 
were transferred to Juliers. 

Christine's reputation for holiness scarcely ex- 
tended beyond the neighbourhood of Cleves and 
Juliers. She has often been mistaken for Chris- 
tine de Saint-Trond, who, being more widely 
known, may be said to have absorbed her name- 
sake, as sometimes happens in hagiography. 
Thus the stigmata attributed to Christine de 
Saint-Trond are a sort of larceny from Christine 
de Stommeln. The Bollandists have proved that 
St. Christine de Saint-Trond was never known to 
exhibit stigmata. The designation of ' Sponsa 
Christi,' bestowed on both these holy women, led 
to other confusions. 

In our time a ' Life of Christine ' has been 
written by M. Wollersheim,* an ecclesiastic of the 
Diocese of Cologne. The principles of this bio- 
grapher were nearly the same as those of Joseph 
Gcerres. He admitted the reality of the facts re- 
corded in the Bollandists. He collated with the 

'Das Leben der ekstatischen Jungfrau Christina von 
Stommeln.' Cologne, 1859, small 8vo. 



366 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 

original manuscripts several of the texts published 
by Papebroch, and often corrected them. He 
was unacquainted with Echard's observations ; 
but, to the data of his predecessors, he added 
many particulars which could only have been 
obtained in Christine's native place. 

M. Alfred Maury ranked the saint among the 
ecstatics and stigmatized persons, with whom 
physiology will henceforth associate her.* In 
future, poor Christine will probably be studied 
only as a patient. Yet, to do her justice, we must 
not forget her love-story. The human heart will 
always assert its rights. It triumphs alike over 
the coldest materialism and over the most unreal 
mysticism. Between the doctors who would 
stretch her on the rack of experiment, and the 
faithful who would place her on an altar, Chris- 
tine, thanks to Peter of Dacia, remains an inter- 
esting study for those who love to search for the 
little flower in the half-frozen fjords of Norway, 
to discover the sunbeam in polar regions, the 
smile of the soul in the most melancholy ages, 
genuine emotion in the midst of the strangest 
delusions. There are times when the Loffoden 
Islands and the gloomy Archipelago of Tromsoe 
are as much to us as Ischia and Capri ; no doubt 
their hours of beauty are infinitely more rare ; but 
in those hours we feel that there is indeed in this 
world only one sun, one sea, one sky. 

° Revue des deux Mondes of the ist of November, 1854, 
essay on the ' Hallucinations of Christian Mysticism.' 



RELIGIOUS ART. 



Those who have pondered over the delicate 
problem of the intimate connection between art 
and religion, will read with much pleasure and 
profit the excellent pages in which M. Coquerel 
has, with unusual frankness, expressed the scruples 
of a liberal Protestant with regard to Italian art.* 
I do not believe a more just and accurate view of 
that difficult subject has ever been formed. Ardent 
piety does not necessarily imply sound taste; pure 
and lofty religious sentiments do not always ac- 
company appreciation of the plastic arts. What 
charms us in M. Coquerel is the union of two 
qualities seldom found together : the spiritual 
religion produced by the teaching of the Reformed 
Churches in noble hearts and lofty minds ; and 
the feeling for form which we are wont to consider 
an especial glory of the Roman Catholic Church, 
and which the peculiar conditions of its worship 
have, in fact, helped to develop. 

The judgments of Protestants on Italy are gener- 

* ' Des beaux arts en Italie, au point de vue religieux,' by 
Ath . Coquerel, jun., assistant minister of the Reformed Church 
of Paris. Paris, 1857. 



363 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



ally very severe. Those of M. Coquerel have a sym- 
pathy, a broadness, a spirit of justice and tolerance, 
which leave impartial philosophy nothing to desire. 
No one could rise higher above sectarian preju- 
dices, or regard beliefs he does not share from a 
point of view more truly Christian. Often, no 
doubt, M. Coquerel becomes critical; but criticism 
of great things always includes praise, and is, in 
a certain sense, only a tribute to their greatness. 
In art, as in the development of her political, 
moral, and religious history, Italy often touches 
the lowest depths ; she is seldom mediocre ; we 
hate her — and end by loving even her faults. She 
is truly the scarlet woman of the Apocalypse, who 
seduced the world ; but where would the world 
have been but for the poison she poured over it ? 

The decadence of art is seen in Italy more 
emphatically than anywhere else ; one might 
almost say that, without visiting Italy, we can 
form no idea of bad taste in full display and un- 
checked insolence. I never saw any church in 
Paris which could even suggest the architectural 
extravagance of Borromini, or the absurdities 
encountered at ever) 7 step in the streets of Rome 
and Naples. Yet that bad taste is never vulgar ; 
it always has character, and one grows almost to 
like it. I remorsefully remember having more 
than once caught myself taking pleasure in the 
Giesu and other edifices which my reason told me 
were puerile and meretricious. Italy is never 
either coarse or dull. Excepting in a few northern 



RELIGIOUS ART. 



369 



towns, more or less subjected to French influence, 
everything there is alive and real, everything bears 
the impress of personality. No one, walking down 
our finest streets — the 'Rue de PUniversite,' or 
the * Rue de Varenne,' for instance — would dream 
of stopping to look at any of those gorgeous 
mansions which, in Italy, would be termed palaces 
In the streets of an Italian city, on the contrary, 
we are tempted to stop before each balcony and 
each doorway. The paintings or the sculptures 
they exhibit were not made merely because it is 
the duty of a great State to encourage art ; the 
buildings were not erected only to employ so many 
masons. Everything has its own style ; every- 
thing is either bad or good, because it is the work 
of an individual, and satisfies some real want. 

Italy owes half, and perhaps the most durable 
half, of her glory to religious art. The schools 
of Sienna and Perugia, the domes of Pisa and 
Orvieto, anterior at least to a certain extent to 
the Renaissance, have often been quoted as 
expressing the ideal of purely Christian art. I 
might be reproached with hypercriticism were I 
to maintain that the productions of Italy in the 
Middle Ages (excepting of course those of Angelico 
da Fiesole) are more artistic than Christian in 
their tendency ; and that the cathedrals of Pisa, 
Orvieto, and Sienna are perfect buildings in a 
worldly sense rather than stamped with a high 
religious ideal. I shall therefore confine myself, in 
order to avoid all appearance of paradox, to saying 

24 



37o NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



that, generally, the forms given by Italy to 
Christian art scarcely satisfy all the various senti- 
ments — the gravity, the sadness, the poetry, the 
morality — which northern nations introduce into 
their religion. We have only two conceptions 
of Christian art : the first takes the mediaeval 
form, austere, sublime, in keeping with the faith 
of masses of men, rough and uncultured, though 
imbued with profound religious sentiment ; the 
second takes the modern form, represented as yet 
only by a few illustrious examples, but destined 
to a great future (if anything is to have a future) 
--a form more abstract, more refined, correspond- 
ing less with a faith generally accepted and 
dogmatically defined than with individual senti- 
ment. Never was the problem of religious art 
more completely solved than in the Middle Ages, 
in the sense that at no other period of the history 
of mankind did religion manifest itself in forms 
more imposing or coming closer to the Deity. 
The mediaeval church is a living whole, like the 
cherub of Ezekiel, speaking in every particle of its 
being, breathing out through every pore the hymn 
of infinitude. Its porticoes, its walls, its floors, its 
windows, are an encyclopaedia wherein we find the 
image of the world, the history of mankind and 
the secrets of the future. It has an outward 
voice — the bells, themselves sacred objects, bear- 
ing their own names, and having an almost bap- 
tismal consecration ; it has an inward voice — the 
solemn chants issuing from many powerful throats ; 



RELIGIOUS ART. 



37 1 



it has its celestial court in the saints sculptured 
on its pillars, drawn on its cupolas and ceilings, 
painted on its. windows ; it has its hell in the 
terrible images blended with heavenly visions. 
Ugliness itself finds its place here as a dissonance 
necessary in the kingdom of God ; it asserts itself 
in those inferior creatures who show their heads 
here and there, degraded, but made subservient 
to the triumph of beauty. 

In our time, when religion has become so 
much more individualized, we cannot hope for 
such high harmony : outward pageants have little 
effect on us ; architecture, which only lives by the 
multitude, cannot lay the foundations of a great 
future in beliefs which, when they escape from 
dry officialism, tend more and more to be con- 
fined within the heart. But music may find fit 
themes in religious emotion. And painting, above 
all, by interpreting religious symbols, and finding 
in them motives for lofty thoughts and grand 
sentiments, may elevate and purify the soul with- 
out theatrical display, without mystical refine-- 
ments, and without archaeological subtleties. 

It is obvious that religious art, in the sense just 
indicated, is not to be found in Italy. Such art, 
the fruit of that refinement in thought and senti- 
ment attained by cultured minds of late years, has 
a complex origin : Protestantism, philosophy, 
German idealism, the pure and noble feelings which 
in England have given rise to Unitarianism and 
other exalted forms of Christianity, have allcontri- 

24 — 2 



372 NEW STUDIES OE RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



buted to it ; but Italy has had nothing to do with 
it. Did the great Christian art of the Middle Ages 
flourish better there ? It is difficult to say. Italy 
never had a Middle Age ; she remained ancient 
very late, and became modern very early ; the 
sentiment of the infinite, the greatest acquisition 
made by mankind during its thousand years of 
slumber, does not exist for her. Excepting at 
Milan and Naples, Italy has no important struc- 
ture which can be called Gothic ; and that name 
itself is to her synonymous with barbaric* The 
Duomo at Milan is an isolated structure; and, 
noreover, its exotic origin is seen in the cold and 
artificial air which characterises all imitations. 
Naples, owing to her Norman and Angevine 
dynasties, had some really Gothic buildings. But 
it is curious to see what has become of them. 
M. Vitett shows by a curious instance how the 
architectural forms of a country will eventually 
prevail over those imposed upon it ; how a 
Byzantine church with five cupolas, a regular 
copy of St. Mark of Venice, planted at Peri- 
gueux towards the close of the tenth century, has 
become a church without any external prominence, 

* I have no doubt the word Gothic, whose origin has given 
rise to so many controversies, is Italian. The memory of Italy 
gave to all the barbaric destroyers of the Roman empire indis- 
criminately the name of Gotij gotico became thus synony- 
mous with barbaric j Gothic times are barbaric times, and 
this is why the Renaissance in its contempt for mediaeval 
edifices called them gotici. 

f Journal des Savants. February, 1853. 



RELIGIOUS ART. 



373 



heavily surmounted by a great double - storied 
roof. Naples did exactly the same. ' She took 
infinite pains and expended enormous sums in 
transforming Gothic into Italian churches. The 
graceful pillars which rose to the summit were 
encased in a thick coating of stucco, so as to form 
a heavy column of sham marble with a huge gilt 
capital. Pointed arches became round arches. 
The vaults in which the bold mediaeval moulding 
used to be intertwined were concealed under a 
coloured ceiling or pretentious paintings. This is 
not the. history of one exceptional church ; it is the 
history of all the churches of the capital and the 
chief towns in the kingdom.' They say that Pius 
VII. in the same spirit admired nothing in Paris 
but the Virgin's Chapel in the Church of St. Sul- 
pice, with its oppressively gorgeous decoration. 

The fact is that Italy, even when Christian, is 
always classical and still a little pagan. The in- 
finite displeases and wearies her. In this respect 
Rome usually surprises Catholics who bring thither 
their Northern imagination. Those massive wall s 
and heavy ceilings, that absence of perspective 
and mystery, are painful to them. The papacy and 
the Roman Court, having become Italian after 
the great schism, had no stronger wish than to 
revert to ancient and purely Roman art, just as 
Arnold of Brescia and Cola de Rienzi, dreaming 
of a political part to be played by their country, 
had but one idea, — to recreate the senate and the 



374 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



tribunes. All the Christian art of modern Italy 
has the effect to me of the Gospels translated into 
Latin verse ; it is like the poetry of Prudentius and 
Sedulius. It is a strange mistake to suppose that 
Koine has preserved any tradition of primitive 
Christian art. It is now proved, for example, 
that the chants of the Sistine Chapel, which were 
supposed to bear traces of very ancient Christian 
music, are only an echo of the poorest dramatic 
music of the eighteenth century, inferior in an- 
tiquity as in taste to the plain song of our humblest 
villages.* 

After the close of the sixteenth century, and 
the great reaction represented by the Council 
of Trent, Pius VI., and Charles Borromeo, Italian 
art, I know, suddenly altered its character ; 
it became Catholic, or rather Jesuitic ; but it was 
not at all more Christian. It was devoid of lofty 
ideas ; Spanish materialism, in its revolting credu- 
lity, dominated it entirely. Do the canvases 
of Barbieri Guercino reveal any high conceptions 
of moral beauty ? No ; they are but the coarse 
assertions of an orthodoxy which crushes the 
object it would embrace, of a pious realism which 
must touch where it ought to be content with 
believing, and which, like St. Thomas, brutally 
thrusts its fingers into the wound. When entering 
the Giesu, or any of the Neapolitan churches, do 

° Vide M. F. Danjou's report in the 1 Archives des Missions 
scientinques/ published by the French Ministry of Public 
Instruction, November, 1850, p. 631 and fol. 



RELIGIOUS ART. 



375 



we realize the dignity of humanity, or the infinite 
glory of God ? Certainly not ; all care for har- 
mony and beautiful form has disappeared ; it is no 
longer a question of ennobling and purifying the 
faithful who come to pray : the sole aim is to do 
honour to a material object containing the real 
presence of the Deity by a gorgeous pageantry 
similar to that surrounding Eastern potentates. 
Such a display would indeed have seemed puerile 
in mediaeval churches, where God was not enclosed 
in a tabernacle a few feet wide, and where holy 
awe filled the whole edifice ; but here God dwells 
in one particular spot, and as we approach that 
spot we require a crescendo of gorgeous ornaments, 
draperies, twisted columns, railings, canopies, etc. 

M. Coquerel appears to me to have expressed 
with perfect justice this essentially materialistic 
character of what may be called devout art. 
Art is only at its ease when it is symbolic — 
reality oppresses and lowers it. But in modern 
Italy symbols are always taken for reality ; 
they become direct objects of worship, and 
consequently exclude art. A statue is supposed 
to do honour to some sacred personage not 
by its beauty, but by its rich attire. Misled by 
the Spanish notions that saints and the Deity Him- 
self are flattered by the pecuniary sacrifices made 
for them, believers lavish gold and precious stones 
upon it. The more massive a silver image is, the 
greater is the merit of the donor — masterpieces are 
valued by weight. This is why Naples, the most 



376 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



Catholic city in the world, in the sense we have 
just indicated, is at the same time the least 
artistic : outside the museums one finds not a 
single work of any merit. The same phenomenon re- 
curs wherever Catholic piety is predominant. The 
ultramontane school of our day, which cannot be 
accused of inconsistency, has declared that the 
works of the great masters are out of place in 
churches, and has given the preference to gilded 
statues, or pictures artistically worthless but more 
capable of exciting devotion. That certainly is 
not the sentiment which Raphael, Michael Angelo, 
or Titian excite in us. The productions of these 
great men, like all that is stimulating and ele- 
vating, elevate our opinion of human nature, 
raise man in his own esteem, and inspire him with 
a sort of proud freedom which is not precisely 
Christian piety. In a very interesting appendix, 
entitled ' Iconography of the Immaculate Con- 
ception,' with which M. Coquerel closes his work, 
there is a curious illustration of the errors into 
which a form of worship may fall by becoming 
more and more materialistic, — I speak of the 
directions given by two Belgian bishops as to the 
manner in which the new dogma is to be pic- 
torially represented. If such rules had existed in 
Raphael's time, should we have had those charm- 
ing Madonnas, so little orthodox, but so truly 
religious, inasmuch as they are the perfect ex- 
pression of beauty ? 

I must not be accused of taking too seriously 



RELIGIOUS ART. 



377 



harmless platitudes, appropriate even in their in- 
feriority to the simple public, for whom they are 
destined. The coarse realism which corrupts re- 
ligious art extends much further than is generally 
supposed. It has surprised and pained me to 
detect it in the last works of a man who did honour 
to art by the seriousness with which he treated it, 
and by the dignity of his character. Some time 
before his death, M. Delaroche wished to paint 
Scriptural scenes. Instead of seeking in those 
admirable subjects themes whose simplicity and 
grandeur would have conveyed a lofty moral, he 
endeavoured to depict the Gospels as he had 
depicted history ; he worked on apocryphal anec- 
dotes, he sought pathos in minute details and 
material objects. Instead of rendering the general 
sentiment of a scene, he dwelt on circumstances 
which had not even a traditional consecration — 
the Virgin in contemplation before the crown of 
thorns ; St. Peter, on the return from Calvary, 
carrying the same crown, and similar subjects 
embodying only the materialistic idea of a ' relic.' 
Instead of the Gospel, he painted the Apocrypha, 
the visions of Mary of Agreda or of Catherine 
Emmerich. It is, no doubt, possible that in 
Christ's last hours there occurred scenes affecting 
from a purely human point of view ; but for high 
art those do not exist. There is only one incom- 
parable symbol, consecrated by mankind, adopted 
by everyone, "and to which nothing may be added. 
Anecdotical painting applied to such subjects is a 



37S NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



profanation ; yet in these days materialism so 
pervades religion that no one protested against 
the sacrilege, and almost everybody was weak 
enough to applaud it. 

Artists must not be theologians. They must 
not invent dogmas fur their own use, but rest 
satisfied with broadly interpreting old texts con- 
secrated by faith. All which tends to give his- 
torical reality to those scenes for which we have 
a conventional standard ought to be deprecated. 
Archaeology itself has its limits. For instance, I 
cannot forgive M. Vernet for having transformed 
the patriarchs of the Bible into Bedouins wear- 
ing the burnous. I will not cavil over details 
with that clever artist ; I will not insist upon the 
circumstance that the burnous is not exactly the 
costume of Eastern Arabs, that neither the name 
nor the thing are often found out of Africa ; I will 
forget that the Crimean Jews, whom M. Vernet says 
he took as models,* are, with the Jews of Abys- 
sinia, almost the only Jews in the world who do 
not belong to the race of Israel. But I venture 
to regret that a grand and remote ideal should 
have been dwarfed to the proportions of genre 
painting. Like subjects taken from the Gospels, 
though in a less degree, subjects drawn from patri- 
archal history are consecrated by tradition; and it 
is far more important to give expression to the 

° See a highly interesting pamphlet entitled 4 Opinions 
sur certains rapports qui existent entre le costume des anciens 
Hebreux et celui des Arabes modernes ' (Paris, 1856), p. 16. 



RELIGIOUS ART. 



379 



sentiment or the idea attached to them, than to 
represent the manner in which the facts actually 
took place. 

I should never end were I to utter all the re- 
flections suggested to me by M. Coquerel's excel- 
lent book. Protestantism has often been taunted 
with want of artistic sentiment. This may have 
been true at certain epochs and in certain branches 
of the great Protestant family; but such a reproach 
can no longer be made general. M. Coquerel's 
book contains the purest, and for us the only 
possible theory of religious art. From theory to 
practice there is only one step ; I have no doubt 
that the Reformed Churches of France will be 
able to take it. Every religion has had recourse to 
art in order to attain its aim of raising man to the 
comprehension of his celestial origin and his mys- 
terious destiny. The zeal of the Iconoclasts may 
have been laudable, so long as it was feared that 
symbols might become objects of worship and 
excuses for superstition in the minds of ignorant 
people. Such apprehensions can no longer exist 
in the Reformed Churches, and M. Coquerel's 
book is the best proof that Protestantism has 
every essential for the development of a very noble 
art at no distant future. 



THE COXGREGATIOXS ' DE AUXILIIS. 1 



AN EPISODE IN THE HISTORY OF THEOLOGY.* 

During the last years of the sixteenth century, 
while Papists and Huguenots were cutting each 
other s throats in Europe, and Montaigne, the 
only sage of those days, was laughing at them 
both on his small estate in Perigord, a war, quite 
as desperate, though less bloody, was raging in 

The details contained in the following narrative are all 
extracts from the original documents, viz.: i°. 'Acta omnia con- 
gregationum ac disputationum quae coram SS. Clemente VIII. 
et Paulo V., summis pontifkibus, sunt celebratae in causa et 
controversia ilia magna de auxiliis divinae gratiae, quas dis- 
putationes ego F. Thomas de Lemos, eadem gratia adjutus, 
sustinui contra plures ex Societate.' Lovanii, 1707, folio. 2°. 
1 Historia congregationum de auxiliis divinae gratiae ' (by Father 
Serry, under the pseudonym of Auguste Leblanc). Lovanii, 
1700, folio. 3 . 'Abrege de l'histoire de la congregation de 
Auxiliis.' Frankfort, 1687, without the mention of the author's 
name, to which is added : ' Brevis enarratio actorum omnium, 
ad compendium redactorum, quae circa controversiam de 
auxiliis divinae gratiae,' etc., by Father Nugnez Coronel, secre- 
tary to the congregations. I have been unable to consult 
the history of the Jesuit Meyer. But I have compared the 
account of the two Dominicans with that given by the most 
orthodox church historians and those most favourable to the 
Society of Jesus. 



THE CONGREGATIONS 1 BE AUXILIIS? 381 



Spain between the Jesuits and the preaching 
friars, under the rival flags of Bafiez and of 
Molina. The cause of the contest was physical 
predetermination. Pray do not smile, reader ; this 
quarrel was to inspire Pascal, to be the cause of 
Arnold's persecution, to destroy Port-Royal, and, 
for more than a century, to convulse Catho- 
licism. The day may come when posterity will 
laugh at our struggles, just as we now laugh at 
the struggles of the past. And yet, after all, 
honour be to a century capable of a passion for 
abstract subtleties ! No one will ever accuse our 
century of such an aberration. 

I. 

Predetermination, or physical pr emotion, the 
latest product of Scholasticism, that is to say, of 
that singular combination of credulity and pre- 
sumptuous rationalism which was the snare of the 
human mind in the period of its decrepitude, was 
in reality only a supposititious child of St. Thomas. 
It originated with Bafiez ; but it was the name of 
the ' Angelic Doctor ' that made its fortune, and 
attracted its crowd of followers. Adopted by a 
powerful Order, it became almost an article of faith. 
The Dominican Father Jacques assures us that 
the angels who rejected the doctrine of predestina- 
tion, which had been put to them as a test, were 
turned into demons.* According to another author, 

8 ' Nova Cassiopeie Stella' (1st edition, Langres, 1667), 
chaps, i. and ii. 



382 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



this dogma was the subject of the dispute be- 
tween St. Peter and Simon the Magician, in 
consequence of which the latter avowed himself 
a heretic. It was also formally professed by 
Aristotle.* According to the Predestinarians, God 
forestalls the human will, and compels the action 
which appears to be one of choice. The freedom 
of man, under the direction of God, is like that 
of a pupil when being taught to write by his 
master, or of a child carried by a giant.-)" The 
common-sense of the laity may think that a hand 
guided by another deserves but little credit for 
writing well, and that the liberty of a child in the 
arms of a giant is rather limited. No matter ; 
the Thomists affirmed positively that liberty and 
predestination could coexist. When they were 
asked how that marvel worked, they simply re- 
plied, ' O altitudo !' 

At the same time that the new theory was 
gaining new disciples, terrible storms were raised 
against it. The Jesuit Montemajor, a theologian 
of Salamanca, was the first to draw the sword, 
and attack, in a solemn thesis, the creation of 
Banez. The latter defended his work, and de- 
nounced to the Inquisition at Valladolid sixteen 
propositions taken from his adversary's thesis. 

In those days it was a point of honour with the 
Jesuits that not one of their body had incurred 
theological censure. They all sided with Monte- 

s Lemos, 'Acta,' col. 1049-1059. 
f Ibid.) col. 1 108. 



THE CONGREGATIONS 'BE AUXILHS: 383 



major. War was declared. Theologians were 
already flocking round the two champions, when 
a great event complicated the quarrel, and en- 
larged its proportions. In 1588, the Jesuit 
Molina published his celebrated book, ' The 
Concord.' I am not joking when I call this a 
great event. How many masterpieces, how many 
books full of life and truth have made less noise 
than this theological quibble ! What fruitful 
ideas have been buried in oblivion, while for 
nearly two centuries attention has been thrown 
away on a mediocre book, which troubled the 
lives of thousands, disturbed whole countries, and 
engrossed the minds of statesmen. Ah ! it was 
a fine thing to be a theologian in those days. 

Molina's object was to substitute £ simultaneous 
concurrence ' for ' predetermination,' ' mediate 
knowledge ' for ' absolute foreknowledge,' and ' suffi- 
cient grace ' for ' efficacious grace.' Few persons 
now take the trouble to find out whether they 
are Thomists or Molinists. However minutely we 
examined ourselves, we never observed that we 
were predetermined to an action from without ; 
and, as for simultaneous concourse, we are also 
weak enough to believe that when we act we act 
alone . . . But, God forgive me ! this is called, 
I believe, being a Pelagian.* 

* 1 Members of that society (Jesuits) held and asserted very 
generally towards the end of the sixteenth century, that the 
human will possesses a faculty of disposing itself to make a 



384 NEW STUDIES OE RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



It is certain that Bafiez was furious when he 
heard that Molina had dared to seek and find a 
system of his own. A sceptical century like ours 
can scarcely understand the anger of a theologian 
of the old school. Except in politics, we have for- 
gotten how to get angry, and many people think 
that we arc not angry enough even about politics. 
Bafiez denounced Molina's ' Concord' as heretical 
before its publication. But the wind was favour- 
able. Scientia media and sufficient grace became as 
fashionable as predestination had been. Molinism 
was defended in public theses at Sarragossa, at 
Toledo, at Seville, at Granada ; in France, in 
Lorraine, and in Germany. When censure was 
dreaded, the theses were dedicated to some 



good use of Divine grace ; that grace sufficient for conversion 
is bestowed on all, but that, inasmuch as it does not act in 
the way of positive compulsion or necessity, it may either be 
complied with or rejected ; and that God predestines to sal- 
vation those only by whom He foresees that His gifts will be 
faithfully employed. According to Molina, the Divine intel- 
lect comprehends three different species or ?nodes of know- 
ledge : " scientia naturalis," or that which relates to events 
caused immediately by God Himself ; " scientia libera," which 
belongs to things depending on His own free will and choice ; 
and " scientia media," which is concerned with future contin- 
gencies, dependent on the agency of man under particular 
circumstances. . . . Molina, while admitting the necessity 
both of prevenient and assisting grace, yet held that without 
the adhesion of the natural will grace does not become effec- 
tual to its designed purpose.' — Jervis's ' Gallican Church and 
the Revolution,' vol. i., pp. 383, 384.— Translator's Note. 



THE CONGREGATIONS 1 BE AUXILIIS: 385 



cardinal, whose red gown concealed the dangerous 
innovations.* 

It would be a mistake to suppose that the im- 
pending battle was to be fought for the sake of 
truth alone. The Jesuits and the Dominicans 
had long cherished a secret but terrible jealousy. 
The Order of St. Ignatius was invading Christen- 
dom : its disciples preached, taught, disputed in 
all the chairs of all the universities. Burning with 
zeal for the salvation of the wealthy, and especially 
of kings (so much so, that, in order to make salva- 
tion easier to them, they had discovered a means, 
as was humorously remarked, for blotting out the 
sins of the world), they soon superseded the 
sons of St. Dominic, who since the thirteenth 
century had been privileged to direct royal con- 
sciences. As may be supposed, the Preaching 
Friars objected to be deprived of so fruitful an 
evangelical harvest, and were in a very bad temper 
with those who aimed at supplanting them. In 
their eyes the new theological system was even 
heretical. The Dominicans preached against the 
Jesuits in their churches. Father Avendano called 
them heretics, seducers, magicians, imps of Satan ; 
and believed that his special vocation was to de- 
stroy their Order. Never, he said, did he celebrate 
mass without feeling fresh zeal for that good work. 

The quarrel grew more and more bitter. In 
vain Rome, faithful to her practice of reserving 
doctrinal decisions for a time when they may have 
Serry, ' Hist.,' col. 148. 

25 



385 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



political importance, tried to impose silence on 
both parties. Both wanted to fight, not to hold 
their tongues. A martial spirit pervaded the 
Jesuit and Dominican convents. Besides, ex- 
perience proves that theologians always prefer 
condemnation to silence. At last, on the ioth of 
January, 1595, Clement VIII. referred the case 
to the Inquisition of Castile. Eight chancellors 
were appointed, and the trial of Molina was insti- 
tuted. I call it the trial of Molina because, 
according to theological custom, the discussion 
was reduced to a purely personal question : * Does 
Molina deserve to be condemned ?' 

The Jesuits were well pleased with the way the 
question was put. For, supposing the doctrine 
should be censured, they reserved to themselves 
the question of fact : 1 Is the condemned doctrine 
really that of Molina ?'* Sixty-one propositions, 
extracted from the book ' The Concord,' were 
judged contrary to sound doctrine. The peril 
was imminent; the sentence was drawn up. The 
Jesuits were on the point of signing peace on the 
hardest conditions, when the hero of the pre- 
destinarians, Thomas of Lemos, unwilling to let 
slip such a fine opportunity for displaying his 
powers, declared that reconciliation would be 
worse than defeat. t The elevation of Bellarmin 
to the dignity of cardinal, and of Acquaviva to 
that of general, induced the Jesuits to hope that 

* Serry, ' Hist., 5 col. 358. 
t Id. j ibid., col. 229. 



THE CONGREGATIONS 1 BE AUXILIIS: 387 



they might make better terms for themselves at a 
later period. Moreover, Spain stood in the way. 
Philip II. was believed to be a Molinist.* Be- 
tween the Courts of Rome and Madrid there was 
a perpetual interchange of requests and diplomatic 
notes as on a matter of the first importance. 

Then, for the first time, scholastic disputes were 
heard of ; hitherto the debate had consisted 
merely of assertion and counter-assertion, without 
anything that could be called argument. The 
champion of the Jesuits was the first thus to 
throw down the gauntlet Lemos took it up. ' So 
be it,' said he. ' Let us dispute for two years ; I 
do not shrink from the contest. 't 

Clement VIII., dissatisfied with his advisers, 
yielded after some resistance. On the 2nd of 
January, 1598, solemn discussions were opened in 
one of the halls of the Vatican. The pope him- 
self presided ; on either side were the cardinals, 
and opposite to him the secretaries. In the 
middle of the arena stood the combatants. Each 
Order had selected its most skilful tilter, who was 
supported during the conflict by his general. 
The pope opened the sittings with a prayer 
to the Holy Ghost, which was thought most 
beautiful. J The dispute was thus carried on for 

Serry, col. 154. 

f 1 Concedantur a Reverendissimis Dominis disputationes, 
et disputeinus per duos annos ; quia ego non refugio illas.' 
— Serry, col. 266. 

% Frankfort abridgment, p. 50. 

25—2 



388 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



seven years, during which seventy-seven congre- 
gations were held. So long as he lived, Clement 
never missed one of them. It surprises us now 
that the making of a dogma should cost an infal- 
lible authority so much trouble : but in those days 
no one was surprised to see the Holy Spirit hesi- 
tating, changing its opinions, and inflicting on 
itself the same tortures as are experienced by the 
poor human spirit which has no pretension to 
infallibility. 

II. 

The first to step into the arena was the redoubt- 
able Lemos. Endowed with a voice of thunder, a 
wide chest, a firm and sometimes terrible look, in- 
defatigable in debate,* inaccessible to embarrass- 
ment or hesitation, this vigorous child of scholasti- 
cism was never worsted in the combats of the schools. 
By adroit distinctions he evaded the strictest syl- 
logisms, and by antagonistic quotations destroyed 
hopes founded on the most precise texts. He had 
been brought up in those Spanish universities, where 
had been taught for centuries a petrified science, 
which had not progressed one step since the days 
of Peter Lombard, and whose immutable poles 
are St. Augustine and St. Thomas. Lemos knew 
those two doctors better than any of his col- 
leagues. Long habit had accustomed him to the 

° ' Ferrea et infragilis i Hi vox, sermonis robur, pectus soli- 
dum, ingenium acre ac vehemens ; quae dotes, singulari 
praesertim eruditioni conjunctas, quantum in contentiosa dis- 
putatione valeant nemo nescit.' — Serry, col. 356. 



THE CONGREGATIONS 1 DE AUX1LIIS: 389 



most intricate arguments, and his untiring lungs 
secured him the victory in those conflicts in which 
he who holds out the longest is the conqueror. 
The Jesuits knew this, and wishing to withdraw 
him from Rome, induced Philip III. to offer him 
a bishopric. But Lemos saw the trap, and pre- 
ferred to carry on the controversy rather than to 
accept the mitre.* 

Lemos was opposed by the Jesuit Valentia, less 
brilliant than his adversary in controversial fenc- 
ing, but clever, artful, rich in mental reservations, 
and worthy to figure among the four animals in 
the apocalyptic allegory which Escobar has intro- 
duced in the preface to his ' Moral Theology.'t 
When he joined in the debate he obstinately 
refused to take the usual oath, and nothing could 
be obtained from him but these words : ' I swear 
what the others have sworn.' I As he was com- 
pelled prematurely to abandon the contest, it is 
impossible to say what subtlety that reticence con- 
cealed, or what advantage he expected to derive 
from it. Valentia's words were sharp and insult- 
ing ;§ he sometimes had to make humiliating 
apologies for his sallies. One day he accused the 
whole congregation of forgery ; when the accuracy 
of the text was proved, he excused himself by 

Serry, col. 356, 357. 

f See ' Provinciates,' 5th letter. 

% Serry, col. 250. 

§ Contumeliose magis quam theologice occurs several times 
in the reports of the sittings (Serry, col. 259, 273). 



39Q NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



saying he only used the reproach in a harmless 
and classical sense.* He had a wonderful talent 
for rinding side issues, avoiding the most difficult 
points, and finding plausible reasons for adjourning 
the debate whenever he was hard pressed. The 
rules of scholastic controversy always furnished him 
with some expedient, which made the pope and 
cardinals very impatient. Lemos affected to be 
vexed at it, andt maliciously proposed to resume 
the debate every day. Valentia, on his side, seemed 
to have nothing so much at heart as to bring the 
contest to a speedy conclusion, and began his 
discourse with these words : ' Illuxit optata dies 
qua nobis disputandum est.'j 

They began by verifying the propositions of 
Molina. As the strong point of the Jesuits was 
that the condemned doctrine did not represent 
that of their brother, they employed all sorts of 
stratagems in order to avoid agreeing on that 
preliminary, and to retain the power of making 
protests. They pleaded headaches, § the obliga- 
tions of their professorships, etc., in order to 
absent themselves from this sitting ; it was post- 

° In significatione honesta et latina illud sumi cupimus. , 
— Serry, col. 263, 264?. 

+ Serry, col. 248. Lemos, col. 180. 'Semper hie pater 
quserit dilationes et alias congregationes,' said Clement VIII. 
{Ibid., 541). 

% 1 Serry/ col. 546, etc. 

§ 'Capitis vertiginem causatus ' (Serry, col. 379). 'Turn 
propter segram valetudinem patris Cobos, qui fere semper 
dolore capitis torquetur' (Ibid., chap, ccxlviii.). 



THE CONGREGATIONS 1 BE AUXILIIS: 391 



poned. The general appeared alone, and the 
inquiry began ; he observed that Valentia's 
presence was indispensable. They waited several 
hours. Valentia had scarcely arrived when the 
general went away. Valentia remarked that 
however anxious he might be to remain, his vow 
of obedience compelled him to follow his superior. 
He returned half an hour later to request that the 
sitting might be deferred. The secretaries refused, 
and compelled him to stay ; but a few moments 
later a messenger from the general summoned 
Valentia on pressing business, and he had to obey, 
to the great annoyance of the secretaries, who 
began to tire of these subterfuges.* They waited 
for another hour, after which he coolly sent them 
word that, reserving the right of expounding 
Molina's doctrine as he understood it, he refused 
to accept any preliminary exposition. 

Lemos stamped with impatience while awaiting 
the contest. Father Choquet, in his book, ' Des 
entrailles maternelles de la Sainte Vierge pour 
l'ordre des freres precheurs ' (p. 326, edition of 
1634), assures us that at the opening of the Con- 
gregations Lemos was surrounded by a halo that 
dazzled the eyes of the cardinals. t But Lemos 
was a man who could dispense with miracles. He 

' Gratum nuntium laetus excepit, et abiit ; relictis ea in 
cella secretariis, qui se tarn lepida scena ludi plus satis 
obstupescebant.' — Serry col. 358. 

t In his order, Lemos was regarded as a thaumaturge. 
See Serry, p. 36, and Lemos, p. 12. 



392 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



had already severely wounded Valentia in nine 
consecutive tournaments, when an incident un- 
heard of in theological records unhorsed his 
clever adversary, and put him out of the lists for 
ever. Valentia's strongest hopes rested on a text 
of St. Augustine's. To make it agree better with 
his views, the Jesuit altered one word — only one ! 
... Et instead of Scilicet* The fraud was 
very innocent, and no doubt he might have found 
among the casuists of his society a score of texts 
to authorize it.t But the manoeuvre did not 
escape Lemos. Whether, as he himself asserts, 
supernaturally inspired by the Divine grace whose 
champion he was, or whether, in uttering his little 
fraud, Valentia risked a timid glance to ascertain 
whether it would pass unnoticed, the unfortunate 
disciple of Ignatius met the relentless and scruti- 
nizing gaze of the Dominican, and turned pale 
beneath it. Lemos instantly asked permission of 
the pontiff, rushed forward, seized the book, 
which Valentia held behind his back, and, ap- 
proaching the papal throne, restored the altered 
text. The pope, indignant at such an imposition, 

° ' F. Thomas de Lemos, quum librum De civitate Dei 
apud se non haberet, ex divino tameii aiixilio efficaciter ad- 
jutus, recordatus fuit in illo loco sancti Augustini esse ver- 
bum quoddam scilicet, quod tamen P. Valentia non legerat.' 
— Lemos, col. 279. 

j According to others, the Jesuits had printed for the 
purpose a spurious edition of St. Augustine's works, by com- 
paring which with the Vatican edition Lemos pointed out the 
fraud (Serry, col. 369, 370). 



THE CONGREGATIONS 1 BE AUXILIIS: 393 



raised his hands towards heaven, exclaiming, • Oh ! 
oh !' This was too much for the wretched Jesuit. 
4 Abandoned by the grace which he had insulted,' 
says a contemporary,* ' he dropped on the floor 
motionless, breathless. His general raised him 
and led him out ; but from that time his health 
failed, and he wasted away ; he was sent to 
Naples for purer air, and there he soon died of 
grief for his mischance.'*)" 

Valentia's catastrophe was called a miracle by 

' Justo Dei judicio, ut creditur, derelictus ab illius gratia, 
quam furore quodam arreptus impugnabat, deliquio animi 
correptus in terram corruebat. Inde eductus semper se 
male habuit, et frequentibus capitis debilitatibus laboravit. 
. . . Prasnuntiaverat longo antea tempore vir quidam catho- 
licus futurum ut patenti aliquo miraculo Deus hujus hominis 
audaciam esset cohibiturus.' — Pegna, quoted by Serry, col. 
374, 375- 

f ' Tunc facto signo a sanctissimo, ut illius librum accipe- 
rem. accessi ad ipsum ; quia librum manu tenens quodam 
modo retinebat et abscondebat post tergum ; et arripiens 
ipsum quasi vi dixi : Sanctissimus praecepit. . . Tunc ipse 
pontifex cum indignatione magna intuens ipsum Valentiam, 
manibus et gestu dixit : Ho ! ho ! Et post paucaquum vellet 
P. Valcntia respondere, passus est tarn potentem vertiginem 
ut, cadens in terram, extra se totus jaceret ; quern suns 
generalis inclinatus conabatur elevare, dicens pontifici : 
Quod passus erat P. Valentia vertiginem ' (Lemos, col. 279, 
282). ' In this dispute De auxiliis] says Duperron, ' all the 
Jesuits were at their wits' end. Valentia was ashamed and 
confused by his misadventure ; he broke his heart through 
the grief it caused him ' (Serry, col. 375, foot note). An 
engraving, inserted in Lemos's ' Actes,' humorously repre- 
sents his adversary's discomfiture. 



394 XEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



the predestinarians * and powerfully assisted their 
cause. The Jesuit Arrubal took the place of his 
unfortunate brother, and endured the assaults of 
Lemos for more than a year. The Molinists re- 
sorted to ingenious devices to parry the hard 
blows of the Dominican ; they published two 
different versions of Molina's works, and when a 
text was cited against them, they used to pretend 
that the right edition did not contain it ; besides 
which, the arrangement of the book being changed, 
their adversaries had the greatest difficulty in 
finding the passages, and often failed to find them 
at all, at which Loyola's disciples exulted. t But 
nothing could resist the subtle dialectics and 
powerful voice of Lemos. One day, his adversary 
had the effrontery to deny the major premise of 
his syllogism : denying the major is to a schoolman 
the greatest insult which can be offered him, for in 
a well-conducted argument that proposition must 
always be incontestable ; it is therefore equivalent 
to telling him to his face that he does not under- 
stand logic.^ Lemos, justly indignant, threw his 

8 ' ... Ad pedes pontificis in apoplexim inciderat. Quod 
etsi minus mirari liceat (quum etiam Diodorus Cronus dialec- 
tics, in ipso scholae suggestu, pras pudore interierit, quod 
Stilponis problema solvere nesciisset), ab adversariis tamen 
in suae doctrinae commendationem instar miraculi jactatum 
est,' says a contemporaneous historian, quoted by Serry, 
col. 376. 

t Serry, col. 88. 

% This is why, in an argument, the formula : Salva 
reverentia or Pace tua, must always accompany the negation 
of a major. 



THE CONGREGATIONS 1 BE AUXILIIS: 395 

doctor's cap on the floor, and vowed that he 
would not pick it up until they had granted him 
the contested proposition. From time to time 
he fortified his voice, which must have been sorely 
tried : after each attack upon the enemy he tossed 
off a full glass. 

In the month of October, 1602, Arrubal was 
worn out, and was sent to Naples, where he found 
Valentia at the point of death. He received the 
last sigh of that martyr to Molinism,* whose 
death caused a great sensation in Rome. Stories 
were told which boded ill for his salvation. 
Clement VIII. was talking to his nephew, Car- 
dinal Peter Aldobrandini, when he heard of the 
Jesuit's death ; the cardinal asked him what he 
thought of the deceased's soul : ' If he had no 
other grace than the one he defended,' replied the 
pope, ' he must have had difficulty in entering 
heaven. 't Some days later, the cardinal met the 
triumphant Dominican : ' Father Lemos,' he said, 
'the pope intends to pronounce you irregular, be- 
cause you have killed Valentia.' ' It was not I 
who killed him,' replied Lemos modestly, ' it was 
the pope himself, who is incapable of being irre- 
gular ; or, rather, we should say the unfortunate 

' . . . Ut gratiae molinisticae martyri, extremum agonem 
agenti, justa persolveret ; (Serry, col. 379). ' Manibus ejus 
bene precor : absit tamen ut tales colat ecclesia martyres,' 
adds the Dominican historian (Serry, col. 377). 

f ' Se non ha havuto altra gratia di quella che ha difesa, 
non sara. andato in paradiso.' 'Jocosum quidem, sed interim 
notandum pontificis dictum !' adds Serry (col. 378). 



396 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



Jesuit killed St. Augustine, since he falsified his 
proposition.'* These jests were considered in 
exquisite taste. 

Predetermination was carrying everything 
before it.t The champions of the Jesuits were 
all struck down with fever or vertigo, and this 
passage from the Scriptures was applied to them : 
' Dominus miscuit in medio ejus spiritum verti- 
ginis, et errare fecit ./Egypt urn in omni opere 
suo.']: They used to represent themselves as 
persecuted, now complaining of having been con- 
victed without being heard, whereas the members 
of the council said they had listened till they were 
tired ; now demanding a council, now pretending 
that it was not an article of faith that Clement VIII. 
was the true pope;§ exactly the same subterfuges 
for which the Jansenists were afterwards treated 
as heretics. They took advantage of the respite 
granted them before their condemnation to dis- 
seminate their doctrine in the universities, and 
frighten the pope with the threat of a schism ;|| 
last of all, they had recourse to celestial revelations : 
many books were published, whose authors, pre- 

° Serry, col. 377, 378. 

t ' Gratiae victrici jam canebatur Io tr-iumphe.'— Serry, col. 
699. 

+ ' Pras doloris acerbitate in febrim incidit Petrus Arrubal. 
Bastida vero, qui generalis vices in congregationibus iden- 
tidem egerat, eodem ac ipse vertigine agitari caepit, adeo ut 
publicum in urbe scomma volitaret : Dominus, 5 etc. — Serry, 
col. 379, 380). 

§ Serry, col. 305, 321, 333. Frankfort Abridgment, p. 41. 
I! Ibid., col. 312, 317, 329. 



THE CONGREGATIONS 'BE AUXILIISJ 397 



tending to an intuitive knowledge of theology, said 
they had read the secrets of Molinism in the mind 
of God. A nun, named Marina Escobar, dreamt 
that she saw St. Dominic, who directed her to 
pray more fervently than ever for the imperilled 
Society of Jesus. Naturally enough, Marina was 
surprised that the patriarch should recommend her 
to pray for the enemies of his Order ; but Dominic 
explained to her that, in Abraham's bosom, 
nothing is thought of but the glory of God.* 

All this did not prevent the danger from being 
imminent. All the members of the council but 
two were hostile to Molina. Clement VIII. him- 
self scarcely concealed his sympathy with pre- 
destination ; in all things he yielded to the influence 
of Cardinal Alexander Peretti, to whom he owed 
the tiara, and that of Francis Pegna, secretary of 
the Rota, who was so unfriendly to the Jesuits that 
he strongly opposed the beatification of Loyola. 
The Marquis de Villena, Ambassador of Spain, 
urged on the condemnation of Molina, in order 
to checkmate the Jesuits, who had displeased his 
Court by countenancing the absolution of Henri 
IV. The censure., was already drawn up, and, 
had Clement VIII. lived a few weeks longer, pre- 
destination would have been an article of faith. 

III. 

But Heaven had decided otherwise. Clement 
VIII. died of fatigue from attending all the con- 
* Serry, col. 331 and fol. 



393 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



gregations, whose debates he followed with the 
greatest eagerness. The good pope took the 
whole thing seriously. He was often met in the 
early morning, going on foot and unattended, from 
Monte Cavallo to Santa Maria Maggiore, where he 
would prostrate himself for two or three hours, 
dressed as a penitent, ad limina apostoloram* To 
preside over the congregations was indeed no easy 
task, because of the martial humour of the com- 
batants; and the pontiff, out of patience, often said, 
* Yoi credete che siete sulla piazza Navona.'t His 
death, regarded by the Jesuits as a visitation from 
Providence, seems to have injuriously affected his 
infallibility, as the general opinion was that every- 
thing must be begun over again. People often 
quoted a saying of Bellarmin's, which they thought 
prophetic, when Cardinal Montalto told him that 
Clement was about to give judgment in favour of 
the Thomists. ' I do not deny,' replied the Jesuit, 
' that he is able to do so, or that he is willing to 
do so ; but I am certain that he will not do so. '% 
This sentence, construed in various ways, gave 
rise to many conjectures. 

Leo XL, successor to Clement VIII., only wore 
the tiara one month. Paul V., who followed him, 
was little more favourable to the Jesuits than 
Clement. But powerful influences were about to 
come to the aid of the ambitious Order which 
every day said more proudly, ' Catholicism, it is 

° Frankfort Abridgment, p. 63. 

j- Lemos, p. 241, 341. % Serry, col. 311, 312. 



THE CONGREGATIONS ' DE AUXILIIS: 399 



I.' Bellarmin, Francis of Sales, Duperron, openly 
supported the theology of the Society. Bellarmin 
did not hesitate to confess his theoretical sym- 
pathies with Thomism ; yet, as a good brother, 
he lost no opportunity of helping the cause of 
Molina.* 

Arrubal was succeeded by La Bastide, who 
was haughty and self-assertive. At first Lemos 
assumed towards him a tone of superiority justi- 
fied by his past victories. ' Do you think,' said 
the Jesuit, ' that you are dealing with a be- 
ginner ? You have before you a veteran, who has 
been teaching for several years in the public chairs 
of Spain, and has broken many a lance with your 
people. 't La Bastide changed the tactics which 
had been adopted by Molina's apologists. They 
had kept on the defensive, content to justify their 
brother from charges made against him. This 
was inviting defeat, for everyone acquainted with 
the rules of scholastic debate knows that of two 
adversaries the one obliged to defend himself is 
sure to be beaten. La Bastide knew this, and 
availed himself of a good opportunity for taking 
the offensive against predestination. Great Lemos, 
what must have been your indignation at hearing 
an irreverent and shameless attack on the doctrine 
consecrated by the name of the ' Angel of the 

* Serry, col. 158-62. 

t ' Putas cum tirone loqui ? Agis cum veterano, qui 
publice multos annos in Hispania docuit, et saspius cum 
vestris concertationes habuit.' — Serry, col. 483. 



4 oo NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



Schools '! . . . It was even worse when, in a long 
discourse, La Bastide drew out under twenty 
heads a parallel between the doctrines of Banez and 
Calvin, and showed their complete identity. This 
was a murderous manoeuvre. To prove pre- 
destination contrary to reason was of no great 
consequence ; but to prove it in accordance with 
Calvin was to deal it a deadly blow. 

Lemos knew this, and mustered all his forces. 
Calvin's name, continually repeated by La Bas- 
tide, had left a deep impression on the minds of 
the cardinals : he replied by the epithets Pelagian 
and semi - Pelagian, which he hurled at his ad- 
versary. The distinction between divided meaning 
and compound meaning helped him to ward off the 
attack for a time, but without fully satisfying the 
judges.* Lemos was diving into his dialectics and 
struggling desperately under La Bastide's terrible 
parallel, when a sudden flash of light helped him 
out of his difficulty. ' Yes,' said he, in his firmest 
tone, ' Calvin, like Banez, held that grace was 
effectual in itself, independently of will. But, 
after all, this is not the point on which he was 
mistaken: his error lay in believing the consent 
of will to be necessary as necessity of consequent, 
whereas it is necessary only as necessity of conse- 
quence.'f 

A cry of admiration welcomed this stroke of 
genius. Lemos, tempted to take pride in so great 

* Lemos, col. 844-46, 977 and fol. 

f col. 985, 986, 1020 and fol. ; 1195, 1198, 1232. 



THE CONGREGATIONS 'BE AUXILIIS: 401 



a triumph, passed his hand across his forehead, 
and exclaimed in order to avert the sinful thought : 
6 It is by the grace of God that I am what I am ' 
— ' Gratia Dei sum id quod sum.' The sitting 
lasted six hours ; the cardinals on leaving the 
room unanimously declared that Brother Thomas 
had never spoken so well before.* 

But times were altered. The most adroit fencing 
of Lemos could not prevail against political reasons 
which had recently acquired predominance. The 
simple schoolman fancied himself still in the time of 
Clement VIII., when the pope himself mixed with 
the combatants, and honestly tried to understand 
them. Paul V. stood in need of the Jesuits ; they 
had served him well in his struggle against Venice 
and Fra Paolo ; he could not now offend them. 
Duperron made him understand that it was im- 
possible to condemn such zealous allies. Besides, 
Henri IV. — most competent judge ! — remember- 
ing the services they had rendered him, interested 
himself on their behalf, and his intercession out- 
weighed all the arguments of Lemos. t The pope 
thought he could not do better than put the whole 
affair into Duperron's hands. It seems to us 
that, if we were infallible by divine right, we should 

' Fuit ista congregatio Celebris, de qua multi mirati sunt 
quod tot ac tantis, ubi fecerunt summum praelium patres socie- 
tatis, sic ex tempore fuisset responsum. . . Omnesin univer- 
sum cardinales et censores audientes cum pontiflce dixerunt : 
nunquam sic locutum fuisse fratrem Thomam.' — Lemos, col. 
1232, 1318. 
f Serry, col. 791-802. 

26 



4Q2 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



not dream of handing over causes submitted to 
our judgment to a man liable to err. But either 
from modesty, or from mistrust of his celestial 
gifts, or because he did not feel the inward en- 
lightenment of the Holy Spirit, Paul V. delegated 
his infallibility in order not to compromise him- 
self. In short, the sun of predetermination was 
setting fast. Lemos himself, the indefatigable 
Lemos, vanquished, though not by the arms of 
scholasticism, was compelled to withdraw from 
the fray, and his place was for the time taken by 
Alvarez. 

To the sixty congregations of Clement VIII. 
were added seventeen, presided over by Paul V. 
The members of the council were exhausted, the 
heroes of the struggle were either dead or tired 
out ; the contest was about to cease for want of 
combatants. It was generally reported that the 
bull against Molina was ready for promulgation ; 
so that predestination, after having been an 
article of faith in the mind of Clement VIII., was 
now in the pocket of Paul V. But this afforded 
small satisfaction to the Dominicans. Of what 
use was it to know as theologians that they 
had conquered, if they were to appear vanquished 
before the eyes of Christendom ? Their prayers, 
their entreaties were useless. On August 28, 
1607, Paul V., in the midst of the Sacred College, 
declared that he would proclaim his decision 
whenever he should think fit ; and, in the mean- 
time, enjoined silence on both parties, forbidding 



THE CONGREGATIONS « DE AUXILIIS: 403 

them to speak ill of each other, or to treat each 
other as heretics. 

It is unnecessary to say that this last injunction 
was not obeyed. 

Thus ended a struggle which had lasted twelve 
years, cost the life of a pope and three or four 
doctors, engrossed three pontificates, and occupied 
a whole generation of theologians, prelates, and 
cardinals. When the pope's decision was made 
known, the dismay of the Dominicans, and the 
delight of the Jesuits, knew no bounds. The 
latter, who had lived so long in dread of the 
Romish thunders, felt the wildest joy. With 
amazing falsehood they said that mercy had 
been shown to their adversaries, but that they 
were really condemned, and that henceforth the 
Society's opinion became a dogma, certain though 
not defined, like the Immaculate Conception. 
In Spain they assumed an air of such insolent 
triumph, that people used to point at the preach- 
ing friars as beaten men.* When the fathers 
of the Society visited ladies, they talked of 
nothing but their victory. t They held public 
rejoicings at Salamanca, Valladolid, Medina del 
Campo, Palencia, Toledo, and Valentia. All the 

' Usque adeo jesuitae falsis reportataa victorias rumoribus 
plebem universam occupaverant, ut pene prasdicatores digito 
monstrarentur.' — Serry, col- 7 13. 

j* ' Mulieres invisentes, tarn supremae quam infimas notse, 
sine aliqua prorsus distinctione, de hac re verba faciunt.' 
— Letter of the provincial of the Dominicans of Spain to 
Paul V., quoted by Serry, col. 716. 

26 — 2 



4 o4 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



Jesuits' colleges had three days' vacation ; there 
were fireworks, theatrical performances, bull- 
fights, triumphal arches, on which appeared, in 
letters of gold, 'Molina victor;'*" and, in the 
midst of all this amusement, were solemn thanks- 
giving masses, processions walking with lighted 
candles to the sound of trumpets. t They even 
gave to Molina the title of 1 Holy Father :' the 
success of the whole affair was attributed to him. I 
Paul V. could not help laughing when he read the 
following letter, written by one of the Superiors of 
the Society to an officer of the King of Spain : 1 By 
the grace of God most High, we have just learned 
the happiest news we ever received since the found- 
ation of our Society, or ever can receive. The Sove- 
reign Pontiff has decided in favour of the Society. 
. . . Henceforward the doctrine of the preaching 
friars must be looked upon as heretical, or, at 
least, as suspicious. We, therefore, intend to 
spend this night in feasting and games, and to 
celebrate to-morrow, at matins, a solemn thanks- 

° ' Fence universis studentibus triduum indictse ; volatilium 
ignium festivi apparatus ; publicae fabularum actiones ; tauri 
per plateas et vicos agitati ; triumphales arcus magna mole 
positi, quorum in fronte aureis litteris incisum erat : Molina 
victor] etc. — Serry, col. 713 and fol. 

f ' Accersitis civibus cereis luminaribus accensis, sonitu clan- 
goreque tubarum,' etc. {Ibid., col. 716). All these particulars 
are taken from the authentic documents referred to by Serry. 

% ' Fuere qui, varias inter Molinse laudes, sacros ei titulos 
deferrent, victoriamque quanta erat, hujusce sancti patris (sic 
etenim loquebantur) meritis adscriberent.'— Serry, col. 713, 
714. 



THE CONGREGATIONS 1 DE AUXILIIS: 405 



giving mass. In consequence, we beg your excel- 
lency to be good enough to send us, as soon as 
possible, the musicians and drummers of your 
regiment, to remain to-night and to-morrow until 
evening. We have given the bearer of this letter 
money to buy fireworks ; that is the chief object 
of his mission. Your excellency will be good 
enough to spread the news throughout your terri- 
tory, and acquaint even the preaching friars with 
it, should an opportunity offer.'* 

£ ... In hujus rei gratiam, nobis in animo esset noctem 
hanc festivis ludis transigere, missamque admodum solem- 
nem crastina luce matutinis horis celebrare, pro gratiis re- 
ferendis. Ouapropter dignabitur Dominatio Vestra, castri 
sui tibicines et tympanotribas mittere quantocitius, qui hie 
totam noctem diemque crastinum, ad horas usque serotinas, 
permaneant. Pecuniam praesentium latori muneravimus, ad 
coemendos ignitos tubulos volatiles,' etc. — Serry, col. 714. 



A WORD UPON THE TRIAL OF 
GALILEO. 



Galileo's trial was a crisis in the history of the 
human mind. Then it was that scholastic science, 
that weak compound of the Bible and of Aris- 
totle misunderstood, had to face true science, 
proving itself by itself. The old pedantry began 
the conflict boldly ; it denounced as false and 
contrary to the faith the system which was truth 
itself. As usual, religious interests complicated 
the question. Setting aside sophisms, this is a 
fair account of how things came to pass. 

In 1616, Rome expressly condemned the system 
of Copernicus, which it pronounced ' heretical and 
philosophically absurd.' In the name of the In- 
quisition, Galileo was enjoined to submit to that 
decree. He submitted in appearance, but, with 
the intellectual duplicity which the religious 
tyranny of those times occasioned, and even to a 
certain extent excused, he endeavoured to evade 
the difficulty, and to set forth the system of Coper- 
nicus as at least an hypothesis which explained 
the facts. For that purpose, he adopted what 
seemed to him the least compromising form — 



A WORD UPON THE TRIAL OF GALILEO. 407 



that of a dialogue on the ' Systems of the World,' 
between a peripatetic and two partisans more or 
less declared of the new ideas. The peripatetic 
is naturally defeated on all points ; nevertheless 
the part he plays is not made ridiculous. This is 
important, because it appears that Galileo was 
not afraid to ascribe to the beaten controver- 
sialist some arguments which had really been 
uttered by the reigning pope, Urban VIII. — as 
zealous a partisan of Aristotle in philosophy as of 
his own authority in matters of faith. 

The dialogue was issued with the imprimatur of 
the ecclesiastical censor. The venom it contained 
was not perceived at first. As soon as it was dis- 
covered, Galileo was summoned to Rome. The 
Grand Duke of Tuscany, whose protection he 
then enjoyed, could obtain him no dispensation 
from the journey. He had to start in spite of his 
infirmities. He arrived in Rome on the 13th of 
February, 1633, an d his first place of confinement 
was the palace of the Florentine ambassador. 

The case progressed but slowly. On the 12th 
of April, Galileo was imprisoned in the Holy 
Office, but was not thrown into. a dungeon. Out 
of regard for the grand duke, he was treated with 
kindness. On the 30th of April, he returned to 
the palace of the embassy to recover from an 
illness. On the evening of the 20th of June, he 
w^as again sent for to the Holy Office. He went 
there on the morning of the 21st. On that day the 
official inquiry took place. When confronted by the 



4o8 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



Inquisition, Galileo unhesitatingly renounced the 
Copernican system. He resisted only on the 
question of intention. His adversaries, deeply 
wounded by the dialogue on the ' Systems of the 
World,' reproached him with having offered in 
that work an indirect apology for the heretical 
opinions. He obstinately denied that intention, 
and maintained that his sole object was to discuss 
the arguments pro and contra, in order to prove to 
foreigners that if Rome condemned the system of 
Copernicus on theological grounds, she was not 
ignorant of all that could be said in its favour. 
This was subtle ; but all inquiries into matters 
which rest entirely on the conscience necessarily 
lead to artifice. 

Did they put Galileo to torture? His silence 
on this point and the absence of any particulars 
on the subject in the correspondence of Niccolini, 
ambassador from the Grand Duke of Tuscany to 
Rome, have been regarded as proofs of the nega- 
tive, and, no doubt, they have much weight. It 
should nevertheless be recollected that, in con- 
formity with the rules of the Inquisition, the first 
thing demanded from Galileo was solemnly to 
bind himself not to divulge anything that should 
take place between himself and the formidable 
tribunal. He kept his promise with the fidelity 
of terror. The official documents relating to the 
trial could alone throw light on the question ; but 
a kind of fatality has prevented the publication 
of these documents. From the archives of the 



A WORD UPON THE TRIAL OF GALILEO. 409 



Inquisition, where they had been carefully hidden, 
they were brought to Paris in 1809. Some one 
undertook to publish them with a French trans- 
lation. The translation was already far advanced 
when the Restoration took place. The pope re- 
claimed the documents; but Louis XVIII., out 
of sheer curiosity, kept them for some time in 
his study. One day the papers disappeared, and 
were sought for in vain in all the Government 
offices. Rome continued to demand their restitu- 
tion until 1845, when M. Rossi, it is said, promised 
to return them, on condition that they should be 
published in their entirety ; and they were placed 
in the hands of Pius IX. 

If this statement is correct,* there is reason for 
surprise that the authorities in Paris should have 
returned such important documents without pre- 
viously having them copied. At all events, if the 
promise of publication was ever made, it has not 
been kept. At the present time nothing is known 
of the official documents except part of the French 
translation, discovered in 1821 by Delambre. 
Monsignor Marino Marini, who had them all 
under his eyes, composed a work on the subject. 
But he took care not to give the documents in 
extenso. He only quoted the passages which 
suited him. The system followed at Rome in the 
publication of historical documents does not 
induce the belief that Monsignor Marini displayed 
much impartiality in his selections. As a rule, 
It is that of M. Biot, Journal des Savants, July, 1858. 



4 to XEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



Rome grants access to documents and authorizes 
their publication only when assured that an 
author will be the apologist of papal history. 
Nearly all the collections of historical documents 
which appear in Rome are systematically incom- 
plete. It is probable that if, among the docu- 
ments relative to the trial, Monsignor Marini met 
with texts contrary to the theses of Catholic 
apologists, he withheld them. The acrimonious 
tone of his .Memoir, and his haughty attitude in 
controversy, are bad signs. What would they not 
do at Rome ad cvitandum scandalum ? The dif- 
ferent paginations cited by Marini seem even to 
indicate that the manuscript he worked upon had 
been mutilated before it reached him. We are 
therefore obliged to read, in the fragmentary docu- 
ments given us, the probable meaning of parts 
cut out by the scissors of interested parties. And 
it must be confessed that, among the sentences 
published, there are some which seem to contra- 
dict the apologist, or at least give rise to doubts. 

In a fragment of the interrogation of the 21st of 
June, published by Marini, Galileo is asked 
whether, after the injunction received in 1616, he 
did not persist in supporting the Copernican 
system. He replies in the negative. He is then 
informed that they will have to resort against him 
to the opportune legal remedies — that is to say, to 
torture ; ' Devenietur ad torturam,' says a passage 
quoted by Marini. The threat of torture is there- 
fore proved. The report adds that, as nothing 



A WORD UPON THE TRIAL OF GALILEO. 411 



more could be obtained from him, ' remissus est 
in locum suum.' What, then, took place, and 
what was that ' locus suus ' to which he was sent 
back ? According to Marini, it was the palace of 
the Tuscan ambassador. But this is false, as 
M. Biot shows ; for a letter from that ambassador, 
dated 26th of June, states that Galileo was de- 
tained at the Holy Office during all the time that 
elapsed between his examination and his recanta- 
tion ; that ' locus suus ' was therefore the apart- 
ment occupied by the accused at the Holy Office. 
Marini was acquainted with the ambassador's 
letter, for, in reference to another point, he quotes 
a passage from it. 

How was Galileo treated in the interval between 
the examination and the recantation ? In the 
absence of authentic documents, we are reduced 
to conjectures based upon the sentence of con- 
demnation pronounced on the 22nd of June. 
' Whereas it appeared to us that you did not 
reveal the whole truth concerning your intention, 
we deemed it necessary to have recourse to a 
rigorous examination of your person, at which 
examination you replied like a true Catholic in 
the matter of the above-mentioned intention.' 
On the 21st, Galileo denied having had the in- 
tention ; he was threatened with torture ; on the 
evening of the 21st or on the morning of the 22nd, 
the ' rigorous examination ' was proceeded with. 
That examination was nothing else than an inquiry 
accompanied with torture. Marini maintains that, 



412 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



in Galileo's case, the threat was not carried out. 
That may be. It is, however, noteworthy that, 
until the rigorous examination, Galileo did not 
reply to the satisfaction of his judges. After the 
rigorous examination, it appears that he answered 
like * a true Catholic.' It must be confessed that 
the conversion took place just at the right mo- 
ment. Be this as it may, we must say with 
Dr. Parchappe that ' the doubt of history is the 
deserved chastisement of the secret of the inquisi- 
torial procedure, obstinately preserved for the last 
two hundred and twenty-seven years.'*' This 
doubt would have been cleared up, had it so 
pleased Monsignor Marini, or rather had the 
precious documents of the Roman archives been 
placed in the hands of persons acting solely in the 
interests of truth. 

After all, as M. Bertrand truly observes in his 
fine essay on Galileo, this is but a secondary 
point. Even supposing Galileo to have been 
subjected to the ' question,' it is quite certain he 
was not maimed. Preparations for the punish- 
ment probably sufficed to satisfy the severity of 
the inquisitorial code and obtain the ' Catholic 
answer.' In any case, a few minutes of torture, 
if Galileo really suffered it, must have been trifling 
compared with the moral anguish which filled his 
latter years. From the time of his condemnation, 
the unfortunate man lived in constant dread, quite 

* ' Galilee, sa vie, ses ddcouvertes et ses travaux.' Hach- 
ette, 1866, &\ 



A WORD UPON THE J RIAL OF GALILEO. 413 



secluded, speaking to no one on the subject of his 
discoveries and ideas, avoiding all intercourse with 
learned foreigners, whose very approach might 
have compromised him. And the shame of all 
these evasions, tergiversations, subtle subterfuges ! 
. . . Such was the moral degradation to which re- 
ligious terror had brought Italy in the seventeenth 
century, that Galileo did not perhaps consider 
these as his most cruel torments. 

Nothing that relates to a genius like Galileo 
should be indifferent to us. He is truly the great 
founder of modern science. He is far superior 
not only to Bacon, whom English vanity has much 
overrated, but to Descartes, who did not make 
experiments — to Pascal, who did not carry his 
researches so far as he might have done, but 
allowed himself to be drawn away by chimeras ; 
he is second only to Newton. While the schoolmen 
at Padua were quietly enjoying the premiums 
which teaching bodies offer to routine and medio- 
crity, Galileo made researches on his own account ; 
he studied nature instead of traditional books. I 
have seen, at Padua, programmes of the beginning 
of the seventeenth century, in which his name 
appears with trifling emoluments, beside those of 
obscure pedants in receipt of large stipends. The 
latter were regarded as the great men of their 
time, the honour of their school, and the defenders 
of sound philosophy. Knowledge must indeed 
possess intrinsic worth, the divine impulse which 
urges the universe towards the accomplishment of 



4i4 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



its ends must be greatly interested in the discovery 
of truth, to enable the student, whose mission it 
is to reveal the laws of reality, to follow his voca- 
tion, without hope of reward, in spite of persecu- 
tions and insults, and heedless of the advantages 
of all kinds which accrue to those who humour 
the delusions of men and accommodate themselves 
to the general mediocrity. 



PORT-ROYAL * 

FIRST ESSAY, AUGUST 28, i860. 

M. Sainte-Beuve has completed his fine history 
of Port-Royal. Many persons have shown surprise 
at the preference given by the gifted critic to a 
subject which appears out of his usual range. 
They did not sufficiently consider the secret ties 
uniting all branches of mental research, nor did 
they do full justice to M. Sainte-Beuve's talent. 
The profound observation and the taste for the 
serious study of the mind which characterize the 
illustrious Academician must have attracted him 
to religious history, which reveals human nature 
in its rarest and most singular moods ; and in the 
history of religion there are few passages that can 
have so much interest as that of Port-Royal for a 
philosophical historian. That abortive attempt 
to reform French Catholicism is full of warnings 
and examples. There are subjects more attrac- 
tive to the imagination : the history of the religi- 
ous Orders in the middle ages — the Franciscan 
movement, for instance — offers far more vivid pic- 

o 'Port-Royal,' by M. Sainte-Beuve, 2nd edition. Five 
vols., 1859, i860. 



416 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



tures. Others are more imposing, and certainly 
the Reformation of the sixteenth century occupies 
a place in the world's history to which the obscure 
work of such men as Arnauld and Lemaitre can 
never lay claim. But, within a restricted area, 
Port-Royal witnessed the development of charac- 
ters of the noblest stamp. In the battle of life 
the struggle is a better thing than the prize. 
Doctrines are not so important as the devotion 
and the heroism they have inspired. Like those 
little municipalities of antiquity and of mediaeval 
Italy, whose internal revolutions still excite our 
enthusiasm, because such men as Miltiades, Aris- 
tides, Dante, or Savonarola were involved in them, 
Port-Royal has imparted to devotional narratives 
and conventual anecdotes the proportions of his- 
tory. The results were meagre, and the arena 
of the struggle was narrow, but the souls were 
great. And the symp'athy of posterity is not com- 
mended by success, nor by the truth of a doctrine, 
nor by the large proportions of an event. The 
soul alone triumphs over time, and while revolu- 
tions effected by violence leave on the memory but 
a barren narrative, every noble heart which has 
left its trace in some corner of the world's annals 
will in due time, whatever may be the changes of 
opinion or the injustice of the schools, find friends 
and admirers. 

The perfection with which M. Sainte-Beuve has 
treated his subject is his best justification for 
choosing it. The skilful historian never produced 



PORT-ROYAL. 



417 



a more finished picture, more vivid, more com- 
plete in all its details. What entitles M. Sainte- 
Beuve to a special place among the critics of our 
century is the lofty philosophy which underlies all 
his judgments. This philosophy is not anxious to 
display itself, and M. Sainte-Beuve is far too much 
master of his art to fix his theory of the universe 
within a formula. But that theory is the hidden 
soul, the mysterious breath whence proceed those 
charming utterances whose origin remains un- 
known to the vulgar. He has seen the link unit- 
ing all things, has touched the limits of the actual, 
and having, in thought, reached the point where 
the most contrary appearances explain and justify 
themselves, he watches the birth of human 
opinions, sees that they correspond to legitimate 
though necessarily incomplete principles, grasps 
them, adopts them in part, and then points out 
where they are weak and doomed to decay. I 
sometimes wonder why, having thus penetrated to 
the very beginnings of consciousness, he has not 
more constantly seen how near to God are the 
foundations of man's being, and how impossible 
it is that a series of finite destinies leading to 
nothing higher can account for the existence of 
things, -and especially of mankind. Perhaps the 
study of reflective literature reveals less clearly than 
the study of the spontaneous productions of the 
mind (languages, primitive poetry, popular beliefs, 
mythologies, religions) that divine force, that 
wonderful purpose, superior to all liberty, which 

27 



4i8 NEW STUDIES OE RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



fulfils itself through the agency of the world and 
of man ; and it is chiefly to the productions of 
reflective centuries that M. Sainte-Beuve has 
devoted himself. Never before were the different 
aspects of the world of the finite spirit so brightly 
and forcibly depicted. If he does not always sub- 
mit to the strict conditions of the chastened style 
handed down to us from the close of the seven- 
teenth and the eighteenth centuries, it is because 
those conditions would sometimes exclude the 
points he wishes to express.* As for me, I con- 
fess, of three or four literary passions, to which I 
have always returned, after many attempts to 
break my chains, that for M. Saihte-Beuve is the 
one which has resisted the hardest trials. I have 
often differed from him as regards the present, 
for the present is doubtful and incomplete ; but as 
regards the past, which alone fully exists, since 
it alone is complete, unalterable, with all its con- 
sequences attached, I do not think we can ever 
seriously disagree. 

The peculiar bent of M. Sainte-Beuve leads him 
to study men rather than the abstract march of 
events. Although the divers phases through which 
Port-Royal passed have been admirably sketched 
by him, they do not constitute the most important 
feature of his narrative. Besides, part of M. 
Sainte-Beuve's work served as a course of public 
lectures : and the arrangement of topics required 

° The last volumes are absolutely perfect in style. See 
some admirable pages, vol. iii., p. 272 and fol. 



PORT-ROYAL. 



419 



by a lecture is quite different from that which 
suits a book. Hence, at times, the reader's view 
is a little obstructed ; the general movement is 
hidden by episodes and portraits. But what 
charm, what acute observation, what sound judg- 
ment, what faithful colouring ! M. Cousin alone 
has been equally successful in giving us the atmos- 
phere of old French society, and interesting us 
in its conflicts. The art of those two masters 
has nothing in common ; the result is the same. 
M. Cousin throws himself unreservedly into the 
epoch of his choice ; he speaks its language, 
adopts its ideas, espouses all its quarrels. M. 
Sainte-Beuve remains beyond and above the con- 
troversy he relates. He does not adopt any 
prejudice ; he speaks as a critic of the nineteenth 
century ; yet his picture is none the less finished. 
The involuntary faith of the reader is a decisive 
test of the truth of the picture. If we compare 
Racine's poor ' Histoire de Port-Royal' with this 
lively narrative, we shall at once see the differ- 
ence. Instead of the partisan zeal which led 
Racine to remove every trace of weakness from 
his history ; instead of the timidity with which 
he omitted heroic scenes whenever he thought 
their details too startling, suppressing, for in- 
stance, the very original story of the ' Journee du 
Guichet,' Sainte-Beuve has exhibited all the rude 
vigour of time and place. To write the history 
of religious movements successfully, one must not 
love them too much, or rather, must love them 

27 — 2 



42o NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



as their historian, not as their disciple. No one 
can write the history of his ancestors well. M. 
Sainte-Beuve would doubtless have pleased us 
less had he held a strong opinion on the book of 
Jansen, and had he not been indifferent to the 
question of grace. 

Everybody has ancestors in the past, but ours 
were not at Port-Royal. The masters of Port- 
Royal contributed little to the scientific work of 
free inquiry from which has sprung the positive 
philosophy of modern times. Neither the physical 
nor the historical sciences are much indebted to 
them. The false spiritualism which, in biology, led 
them with inexorable logic to consider animals auto- 
mata, blinded them to a true conception of nature. 
Their philology was also second-rate. The ex- 
clusiveness with which they sought in books only 
for what might edify or cultivate judgment or 
taste, forbade their becoming proficient in that 
delicate science. Tillemont's histories are master- 
pieces of conscientiousness ; but conscientious- 
ness is not criticism. The worthy Lancelot 
improved a few elementary works ; but he con- 
tributed much to introduce amongst us the 
artificial and mechanical method of learning the 
dead languages : he was the forerunner of Lho- 
mond.* Port-Royal cannot be compared to the 

■■ Lhomond (Charles Francois), born at Chaulnes 
(Somme) in 1727, died at Paris in 1794. He is known by 
his ' Elements of Latin Grammar,' and his ' Epitome historian 

sacra?.' — Translator's Note. 



PORT-ROYAL. 



421 



Italian schools of the sixteenth century for free- 
dom of thought, or to Protestantism for grandeur 
of results, religious and intellectual. It is 
rather to the latter that we must look for our 
ancestors. Historical criticism is the true 
daughter of Protestantism. The sceptical Italy 
of the sixteenth century knew as little of it as the 
sceptical France of the eighteenth ; and as to 
Catholicism, it so resolutely asserts its secular 
unity and its divine homogeneousness, that any im- 
partial history founded on the idea of the organic 
growth of doctrine is regarded by it as dangerous. 
The discussion of the history of dogma, which is 
the basis of Protestantism, can alone make these 
delicate and troublesome researches sufficiently 
interesting to enlist whole generations of workers. 
If Greek had not been the language of the New 
Testament, and possessed paramount theological 
interest, Henri Etienne's ' Tresor de la langue 
grecque' would never have seen the light. 

The foundation of historical and philological 
science is in this way the work of Protestantism. 
It is also, in a very true sense, the work of 
France ; for it was by a series of Frenchmen, 
Protestants or affiliated to Protestantism — Casta- 
lion, Turnebe, Lambin, J. Scaliger, the brothers 
Etienne, Casaubon, Saumaise, Bochart, Lefevre, 
Louis Cappel, the Saumur school, and the first 
(almost entirely Protestant) generation of the 
College of France — that it was mainly accom- 
plished. These are our ancestors. It is worthy 



422 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



of notice that, in the first half of the seven- 
teenth century, France was as proficient in 
philology and criticism as Germany became a 
hundred and fifty years later. Bochart and Cappel 
are equal to Michaelis; Casaubon and Saumaise 
to Heine and Wolf; Henry Etienne has no equal. 
The vast progress which Germany has made for 
more than a century in all branches of philology 
is but the continuation of what had been begun 
by France, so free, so enlightened, so clear-sighted 
in the reigns of Henri IV., Louis XIII., and the 
first half of that of Louis XIV. It was when 
France, by a series of measures culminating in 
the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, compelled 
her most learned men — Saumaise, Leclerc, Bayle, 
Beausobre, Basnage — to expatriate themselves, 
that the domain of historical studies was trans- 
ferred to Holland and Germany. God forbid that 
I should make this accusation too sweeping ! 
The mediaeval studies of Du Cange and the Bene- 
dictine school have never been surpassed in con- 
scientiousness. The Academie des Inscriptions 
et Belles-Lettres have rendered distinguished ser- 
vice to the study of classical literature, and produced 
two eminent men, Freret and Barthelemy. Montes- 
quieu takes a high place amongst those who 
created the philosophy of history. But, after all, 
the eighteenth century did very little for the pro- 
gress of historical criticism. When the Jesuits 
would be bold, they break out into the absurdities 
of Pere Hardouin. The university, more cautious, 



PORT-ROYAL. 



423 



contents itself with the sweet simplicity of 
Rollin. Philosophical writers do not display any 
more seriousness. What superficial arrogance 
there is in their judgments on the past ! What 
shallow presumption in their scorn ! Voltaire did 
more harm to historical studies than an invasion 
of barbarians ; with his light wit and his deceitful 
facility he discouraged the Benedictines ; and it 
is his fault if, for fifty years, Dom Bouquet's col- 
lection was sold to the grocers for waste-paper, 
and the publication of the ' Histoire litteraire de 
la France ' had to be given up for want of readers. 
At the opposite extreme to Voltaire stands, not 
Catholicism (there is more affinity between the 
two than people think), but liberal Protestantism, 
creating the criticism of the sixteenth and seven- 
teenth centuries, and issuing towards the close of 
the eighteenth century in Schleiermacher, Herder, 
Fichte, and that marvellous blossom of German 
Christianity, the finest intellectual and religious 
development yet produced by the reflective con- 
sciousness. 

In the progress of the critical spirit, which is 
also the modern spirit, what place should be 
assigned to the masters of Port-Royal ? An 
intermediate and limited one, it must be con- 
fessed. The historical sense, which can create a 
living past from the dead letter of old chronicles, 
was blunted in them by dogmatic theology. ' La 
perpetuite de la foi ' and the vast labours it in- 
volved were stultified at the outset by the assump- 



424 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



tion that, alone among the things of this world, 
Catholicism has never changed. The object of 
minds so biased is not to grasp the diverse 
thought of various ages, but to show that all ages 
thought alike. The Benedictines of the Congre- 
gation of St. Maur are, in this respect, much 
more akin to ourselves, and have done more for 
the future. Tolerance, the daughter of criticism, 
was equally unknown at Port-Royal. Its inmates 
were always unjust to Protestants, and applauded 
the iniquitous measures taken against them. It 
is curious to see with what indignation St. Cyran 
speaks of heretics. On a well-known occasion,* 
Pascal played the part of informer for the Holy 
Office. The idea of religious liberty never occurred 
to these rigid believers : when they declaim against 
persecution it is always in the name of truth, 
never in that of liberty. 

Was it then without cause that Port- Royal left 
such a mark and excited so much sympathy ? 
No, indeed. Unimportant, if considered in the 
light of modern ideas, with which it has little in 
common, this school was unequalled in the great- 
ness of the characters it formed. Nowhere else 
have been seen so many brave and loyal spirits 
devoted absolutely to their ideal of righteousness. 
Their pride was sublime, and their recognition of 
the nothingness of worldly greatness and the 
equality of mankind in misery and sin was truly 

See the ' Vie de Pascal,' by Madame Perrier, pp. 4, 5 of 
M. Havet's edition, and the judicious remarks of the editor. 



PORT-ROYAL. 



425 



Christian. What strength of will they showed, 
and how noble an example of what the human 
soul can do when convinced that it possesses the 
truth ! In those days of official grandeur, when 
the saints themselves acknowledged the mighty of 
this world to be images of the Deity, and more 
likely than others to find favour in His eyes, it is 
comforting to find men thus proclaiming the 
Christian democracy, and showing this respect 
for manual labour, this proud contempt, this 
roughness of behaviour towards the great. Now 
it is the gardener of the abbey (a converted noble- 
man) who resists the archbishop, and stoutly 
argues with him. Again it is M. Singlin who 
receives with freezing indifference Madame de 
Guemene's advances. ' You are not used to this 
language,' said St. Cyran to Lancelot, then a 
young recruit. ' In the world people do not speak 
thus ; but here are six feet of earth where we do 
not fear the chancellor or anyone else. No human 
power can prevent our speaking the truth.' ' We 
have a Master,' he says again, ' whom we must 
serve, and for whose sake we must endure the 
hatred of men. I wish no harm to those who 
persecute me, and I have not forgiven the person 
in question* because he has not offended me. 
If I were a worthy servant of God, I should not 
be persecuted, but crushed.' 

Thus Port-Royal rises in the midst of the seven- 
teenth century like a triumphal column, a temple 

M. Zamet. 



426 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



to manliness and truth. Certainly freedom to 
worship God has had other martyrs. The struggle 
of Protestantism was more heroic, since it was 
even unto death. But, in those days, Protestant- 
ism had already become a stranger to France. 
Here it was from French citizens, represented by 
a few old Parisian families, enlightened and serious 
minded, that resistance came. The nuns of Port- 
Royal did more than bishops, more than the 
Gallican Church, more than the pope himself — 
they kept conscience alive. With his seraglio 
insolently paraded before all Christendom, Louis 
XIV., so far as in him lay, lowered the morality of 
France to the Oriental level. Fortunately some 
women resisted him. The admirable saying, ' The 
king can make princes of the blood,* he may also 
make martyrs,' is the revenge of a Frenchwoman 
for the insult she received at Versailles. From 
Port-Royal proceeded the only opposition Louis 
XIV. met with at home, the only protest against the 
encroachments of the government on the province 
of the mind. Those who think that Richelieu and 
Louis XIV. started France on the road which 
was to lead to the Revolution, and after the 
Revolution to a series of fruitless ventures, cannot 
prize too highly the school which gave France 
the only characters which did not bow to the 
fascination of a power abounding in present seduc- 
tions and future perils. 

5 In allusion to the legitimation of the natural children of 
Louis XIV. 



PORT-ROYAL. 



427 



Seen in this light, St. Cyran acquires the pro- 
portions of a national hero. One of the merits of 
M. Sainte-Beuve is to have revealed the grandeur 
of this wonderful figure, neglected by history 
because it had none of the external glitter which 
secures renown. St. Cyran has proved that it is 
possible to be at the same time an insufferable 
writer and a noble character. At first sight, it is 
difficult to understand how the obscure author of 
unintelligible books could have been the chosen 
director of the strongest minds of his time, the 
promoter of a vast intellectual and religious move- 
ment, one of those men who exact most from their 
disciples, and who, the more they exact, are the 
more beloved. M. Sainte-Beuve explains it all. 
The special qualities of men powerful in sentiment 
and action differ widely from those of writers. 
The writer has many disadvantages in the rela- 
tions between man and man. The powerful 
weapons he wields render conversation, corre- 
spondence, private exhortation irksome to him. 
Instead of speaking to one person at a time, he 
is always tempted to address thousands. A man 
of speech or action, on the contrary, accustomed 
to see face to face the person whom he influences, 
and to realize instantly the effect of his words, 
does not comprehend the refinement and ramifi- 
cation of written thought. His success depends 
on the impression he makes upon one individual 
or a few persons at a time. His discourse must 
be judged not by absolute rules, but by the fruit 



4-3 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



it bears. If, instead of St. Cyran's insipid 
volumes, we read his conversations and his 
exhortations as the nuns he directed reported 
them from memory, the metamorphosis is com- 
plete. Thanks to his disciples, the mediocre 
writer ^rows eloquent. The thought which by 
itself could not find expression is all aglow with 
life when it has traversed the crystal of a sympa- 
thetic spirit and received from the souls it in- 
line need the light which without them it did not 
possess. 

Among all the remarkable men produced by 
the Catholic renaissance which occurred in France 
about 1600— Francois de Sales, Vincent de Paul, 
Olier, Berulle, etc.— St. Cyranwasthe most logical 
and vigorous. Francois de Sales had, no doubt, 
more vivacity and charm ; but his influence on 
Catholicism in general was unimportant. The 
laity, unacquainted with mysticism, and accus- 
tomed to estimate religion only by its results, will 
think the career of Vincent de Paul much more 
fruitful as the founder of the great apostolate of 
modern Catholicism, that of charity. But re- 
ligion has an ideal object, distinct from the good it 
does. The object for which man was created being 
to realize the highest contemplation of the uni- 
verse, or in other words the most perfect worship 
of God, and that object involving of necessity, or 
(if the expression be preferred) without the will of 
the Creator, an enormous amount of suffering, every 
effort to diminish that suffering is work for God. 



PORT-ROYAL. 



429 



Only secondary work, however ; the greatest allevia- 
tion that charity can effect in human misery will 
be but a negative benefit, without any direct moral 
value. Man is not intended to live without suffer- 
ing. One hour of the meditation of St. Theresa 
or Spinoza is worth a whole day of St. Vincent 
de Paul. The ascetics and the Stoics of all ages 
have done their part in the work of the world by 
reminding man of the stern and lofty sadness of 
his destiny. In like manner St. Cyran, in probing 
to the bottom the wounds of the spirit, and aus- 
terely enforcing belief in duty, has done as much 
for mankind as those who are rightly called its 
benefactors. 

His inflexible execution of his design was admir- 
able. He alone thoroughly recognised the great 
danger of Catholicism, exaggerated obedience, 
abnegation of conscience, a tendency towards 
automatic religion. The keen penetration of 
Francois de Sales perceived this evil. ' My 
daughter,' said he to Mere Angelique,* ' we can 
only weep for this misfortune. To denounce it to 
the world in its present state would be to provoke 
useless scandal. These patients love their 
disease and do not wish to be cured. (Ecumeni- 
cal councils, being above the pope, ought to 
reform the head and the members. But popes 
get angry when the Church does not submit 
entirely to them, although, according to the law 
of God, the Church is above them when a 

Sainte-Beuve, i., p. 221. 



43o NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 

council is canonically assembled. I know this 
as well as the doctors ; but discretion induces me 
to keep silence, because I hope for no good from 
speech.' Frederic Borromeo also understood the 
gravity of the evil. * Zeal and grief for the dis- 
orders of Rome,' said he to M. de Belley,* 'in- 
duced me to write a book three fingers thick, where 
they were nearly all described. But, seeing every 
door shut against reform, and understanding that 
God alone could bring it about through His 
providence, I burned the book, seeing that it was 
only likely to cause scandal by making public the 
excesses of those who have no wish to mend their 
morals, and have become politicians rather than 
ecclesiastics. 't So they all respectfully veiled 
their faces. But St. Cyran boldly struck at the 
root of the mischief. The efficacy of grace alone 
was the heroic remedy he opposed to an effete and 
state-ridden Christianity. No compromise was 
possible. God and the conscience, terrified at the 
unknown decree which will absolve or condemn it, 
are face to face. God is incorruptible. The 
timidity of Francois de Sales, the compromises 
of Bossuet, the Jesuitical method of trafficking in 
salvation, the indulgences of the Borgias and 
Medicis, become sheer fatuity when contrasted 
with this bold suppression of all which might 
excuse frailty or console feebleness. 

This was the master-stroke of St. Cyran ; here 

° Camus, the friend of Francois de Sales, 
j" Sainte-Beuve, i., p. 222. 



PORT-ROYAL. 



43i 



lay the secret of the extraordinary influence he 
possessed over the minds of his contemporaries. 
We must not hesitate at the apparent contradic- 
tion between a theology which crushes man, and 
a morality which raises him. The nature of 
Christianity explains this peculiarity, which occurs 
several times in the course of its history. The 
greatest danger to Christianity, the cause which 
has often relaxed the springs of this great religious 
machine, has always been the extreme importance 
it attaches to its official establishment. The 
priest, the pope, the Church, the saints, are in the 
Christian organization so important that, unless 
we are very careful, they threaten to eclipse God 
Himself, and to monopolize the whole work of 
salvation. It is certain that a Catholic who 
wishes to be saved has more to do with the Church 
than with God. When Richelieu threw St. Cyran 
into prison for maintaining that the love of God 
is necessary in attrition, the cardinal was not so 
foolish as he seemed. Had the abbot's doctrine 
prevailed, Louis XIII., who naively confessed that 
he did not love God, would have slipped through 
the hands of his confessor, and of the cardinal 
also. This substitution of man for God, and, if I 
may venture to say so, this suppression of the 
Deity, being the great evil which undermines the 
work of Christ, every reform of Christianity, 
every awakening of Christian spirit, consists in a 
return to the strict doctrine of grace. In the 
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries (the lowest period 



432 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 

of Christianity), the evil reached its height. The 
Reformation opposed to it the doctrine of justifi- 
cation through Christ. In the seventeenth century, 
the political influence of Spain and the Jesuits 
having again eclipsed the faith of St. Paul and 
of St. Augustine, St. Cyran was the Calvin who 
took in hand the cause of God. Experience proves 
that man never uses his liberty better than when 
he believes himself bound by the dogma of grace. 
On that occasion this strong reaction produced its 
usual effects. A manly Christianity appeared as a 
protest against the weakness and corruption of 
the official Church ; religion became trulyspiritual ; 
the simple priest resumed his dignity ; there was 
hope that the Church might cease to be a com- 
promise between popes and kings ; a great religious 
republic, whose fundamental principle was the 
election of bishops, seemed on the point of 
being established. It is easy to understand the 
enthusiasm produced in a little group of believers 
by that dawn of a Christian renaissance ; but it is 
also easy to foresee the obstacles which beset the 
new apostles when they attempted to impart to 
the Universal Church their ideal of a pure 
Christianity and a strictly spiritual religion. 

SECOND ESSAY, AUGUST 30, i860. 

The Jansenist reformation, unlike that of the 
sixteenth century, only succeeded in schools and 
monasteries. The fixed resolve of its founders to 



PORT-ROYAL. 



433 



remain within the pale of the Church cut it off 
from a future. Jansenism held out for some time, 
because Catholicism was still deeply sincere — the 
fruit of personal convictions ; but it was unable to 
realize any of its aspirations, because the contra- 
diction between the end in view and the means 
employed was too flagrant. If St. Cyran may 
be compared to Calvin as regards his doctrinal 
tendencies, his want of success and his false 
position in the Church remind one of Lamennais. 
Like Lamennais, St. Cyran aimed at reforming 
the Church through the priests and a pious laity, 
rather than by the ordinary means of the hier- 
archy. Relying on the attachment they inspired, 
and the talent and social importance of their 
disciples, both alike avoided preferment, which 
would have restricted their spiritual freedom of 
action, and aspired to rule the Church by means 
of a central agency undefined in character. That 
was where they deceived themselves ; they over- 
looked the fact that, in a highly organized society 
like ours, one can only overthrow a hierarchy by 
entering it. Both were condemned by the official 
Church, outside which they wished to place them- 
selves, though acknowledging its divine right ; and 
both fell victims to their simple confidence in the 
power of naked truth. But the uncertainty of life 
and the changes in the times made their end very 
different. St. Cyran died at a critical moment, 
as though Lamennais had died before the ' Paroles 
d'un Croyant ' appeared. Lamennais outlived him- 

28 



434 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



self, struggling for twenty years against the weight 
of his past. St. Cyran's protest was carried on by 
his disciples ; it created a tradition which is scarcely 
extinct in our days. The school of Lamennais 
was shattered at one blow, and the sentence which 
struck the master did not leave him a single dis- 
ciple. Our century has not faith enough to pro- 
duce a heresy. The resistance of Jansenism, 
which so scandalizes the Catholics of our day, 
proves how active the Christian spirit was in the 
seventeenth century. Then, people trusted to 
reason; belief was individual ; orthodoxy still left 
room for private opinion. In our day, faith is the 
abdication of reason ; people accept it, they do 
not acquire it. In such a state of things a sect is 
an absurdity. The principle of authority has now 
assumed such proportions that to resist the 
Catholic Church is to break with her. Rebellion 
is the only possible form of opposition ; remon- 
strance is justly looked upon as temerity. 

This is the great lesson in religious history 
taught us by Port -Royal. The failure of St. 
Cyran should discourage for ever those who 
dream of reforming Catholicism without quitting 
it. Jansenism will be the last of the heresies; 
Port -Royal the last feudal castle stormed by 
Catholic unity. Orthodoxy triumphed on its 
ruins ; it must take care : when monarchic unity 
triumphed in the extinction of the last vestige of 
local independence, it was on the eve of the 
Revolution. The awful silence enforced by 



PORT-ROYAL. 



435 



Catholicism reminds me, I know not why, of 
France under Louis XV. Catholicism will perish 
in a convulsion which will be in religion what the 
Revolution was in politics. If it falls, it will fall 
because it has stifled within its breast all life and 
speech. 

To sum up, the influence Port-Royal exercised 
over France was purely literary. The Port-Royal 
style, simple, severely true, even when rather 
slovenly, is a kind of prose which most resembles 
that of the ancients. I do not entirely share M. 
Sainte-Beuve's preference for the style of the 
Academy to that of the Port-Royal recluses. The 
best work is that which shows no literary after- 
thought, which does not make one suspect that 
the author wrote for the sake of writing, which 
has not the slightest flavour of rhetoric. And, 
in the seventeenth century, Port-Royal was the 
only place where rhetoric did not penetrate. The 
rigid rule of those perfect Christians had an ex- 
cellent effect in this respect ; they would have 
suspected themselves of vanity and mistrust of 
grace had they adorned truth with frivolous orna- 
ments. They were, it is true, deficient in poetry, 
unless it be that poetry of the soul which is deepest 
when it least expresses itself. Santeuil's Latin 
verse, which they inspired or at least admired, has 
the same effect on me as Boileau's odes ; the age 
of Christian poetry was past. But thought, tem- 
perate, self-restrained, and well-regulated, was 
never better expressed. Pascal himself, who is 

28—2 



436 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



certainly not indebted to them for his genius, owes 
his truthfulness to them. Had he been brought up 
in the Academical school, he would not, I think, 
have been so free from affectation. The usual 
note of the Academical prose of the seventeenth 
century is that of Seneca. The fine effect pro- 
duced by the works of that able rhetorician when 
translated into French, and even by the tragic 
declamations ascribed to him, always alarmed 
me. Seneca — we must beware of the fact — is our 
model ; when our style is pitched in his key it is 
considered sober. Port-Royal alone knew the 
simplicity of antiquity, the style that exactly fits 
the thought, and like a well-made garment leaves 
everyone his own figure, not giving an air of 
genius to those devoid of it, nor seeking any other 
elegance than that of suitability. 

The destruction of that grand school of virtue 
and common-sense is one of the most inexcusable 
acts of Louis XIV. 's government. Never was 
there a more painful instance of the chief defect 
of centralized countries, whatever their constitu- 
tion may be — the jealous hatred of independence 
evinced by the state. St. Cyran was un hommc 
sans prises, with whom neither caresses nor threats 
availed. He refused a bishopric ; and despotic 
powers always regard as seditious those whom 
they cannot bribe. He was arrested. ' The late 
Cardinal Richelieu w r as then at Compiegne,' the 
Archbishop of Paris said to the nuns ; ' I was 
master of his bed-chamber; he sent for me, and 



PORT-ROYAL. 



437 



said, " Beaumont, I have done to-day a thing for 
which a great many people will blame me. By 
order of the king I had the Abbe de St. Cyran 
arrested. I foresee that all learned and good 
people will be incensed with me, for it must be 
granted the abbe belongs to both classes. So all 
who know him, and many persons of quality 
whose director he is, will think I have done a 
great injustice. . . ." And the cardinal added, 
" Whatever may be said of me on this occasion, 
I am convinced both the State and the Church 
ought to be grateful for the service I have ren- 
dered them. For I am told that the abbe holds 
peculiar and dangerous opinions, which might 
some day cause scandal and discord in the 
Church ; and it is one of my maxims that what- 
ever unsettles religion will also disturb the State, 
to prevent which is a signal service to both." ' 

This error of the great cardinal was repeated 
with additions in the following reign. More and 
more the State became the universal peacemaker, 
preventing divisions by extinguishing that which 
makes life worth living — freedom of thought. The 
government considered that it was responsible for 
all that was said or done in the kingdom ; so 
much so, that no convent could reform itself, and 
no religious quarrel could be settled without its 
interference. Port-Royal, it must be admitted, 
furnished the pretext for all this interference. 
Mere Angelique made a very French mistake, 
when, unable to attain her ideal of austere dis- 



438 NEW STUDIES OE RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



cipline under the 'good customs' of Citeaux, 
she solicited the Court of Rome to place her 
convent under the jurisdiction of the Ordinary. 
At first sight, what could have been more proper? 
The ' good customs' of Citeaux, which the lax party 
desired to maintain, were what are called abuses. 
The holy abbess, no doubt, believed that, in 
appealing to the king and the pope to destroy 
them, she was performing an act of Christian 
policy. She had not yet learnt by hard experi- 
ence that abuses are better than reforms when 
the latter are due to administrative intervention 
and an appeal to distant powers. The fall of 
Port- Royal was the consequence. To escape the 
laxities of the Cistercian rule they submitted to 
the archbishop : that was submitting to the Court. 
Port- Royal was defenceless on the day when its 
independence gave offence, and when the Court 
realized that within its walls were minds capable 
of thinking for themselves. 

The littleness of the motives which guided 
Louis XIV. on this occasion would be incredible 
were it not attested by the very persons who 
carried out his orders. Pressed by the nuns, M. de 
Hardy at last avowed them. ' Good heavens !' he 
cried ; ' cannot you understand ? People are 
always talking about Port-Royal ; the king does 
not like what makes so much noise. A little while 
ago he told M. Arnauld that he objected to his 
holding meetings at home ; that there would be no 
harm in his seeing all sorts of people like anybody 



PORT-ROYAL. 



439 



else ; but why were certain persons always meet- 
ing at his house ; and why had he so much to do 
with them ? If he wrote books, he could easily 
take the advice of those public persons whose 
business it is to give it : why should he always 
want to be in communication with those gentle- 
men ? The king will not have any association : 
a body without a head is always dangerous in the 
State ; he wants to do away with it, and not to 
hear people continually talking about " Those 
gentlemen — those gentlemen of Port-Royal!" 
He repeated eight or ten times the phrase " asso- 
ciation " (ralliement), and applied it to everyone. 
" Not that we blame any of those persons in- 
dividually," he took care to remark ; " on the con- 
trary, taken individually, one may say they are all 
good ; but when they associate together you have 
a body without a head." ' 

Thus the true crime of Port-Royal was its 
importance. It formed a society sufficient to 
itself and living by itself. That constituted a 
sort of challenge from the recluses to the king. 
Louis declared that 'he would put an end to the 
cabal ; that it was his own affair, and concerned 
his own person ; and that, in dealing with it, he 
would be more Jesuitic than the Jesuits.' He 
kept his word. A poor old nun, on her death- 
bed, having expressed a wish to see her banished 
confessor, the archbishop was appealed to. 
The prelate replied ' that he could not presume 
to grant the request, as it rested entirely with 



44o NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



the king ; that if they liked he would speak to 
the king, but that he was certain beforehand 
that the king would refuse.' 

The Due de Luynes had two daughters at 
Port-Royal. Colbert advised him to remove 
them, saying ' that nothing would be done for 
the other children so long as those two remained 
at Port-Royal ; and that those persons whose 
daughters were being educated there must not 
expect to be welcome at Court. It is strange,' 
added Colbert, ' that I have so often spoken of 
this to you, yet you never trouble yourself about 
it : you have seven children ; you ought to think 
of them.' 

The Due de Luynes removed his two daughters. 
President Guedreville wished to know the cause 
of these severe measures. He asked the arch- 
bishop whether anything objectionable had been 
noticed in the education at Port-Royal. As 
usual, the archbishop began a pompous eulogium 
on the holy house. The president having in- 
sisted. ' Why, sir, you do not understand me,' 
replied the archbishop ; ' that is the very reason 
why these measures were resorted to. The 
convent enjoyed too great a reputation. Persons 
of quality entrusted their daughters to these nuns; 
people went about saying how well satisfied they 
were : thus new friends were made who joined 
with the friends of the convent and formed a party 
opposed to the State. The king could not allow 
this ; he believes that such unions are dangerous 



PORT-ROYAL. 



441 



in a State ; this is what he is resolved to put 
down.' Pressed again to explain himself, the 
archbishop summed up as follows the grievances 
against Port-Royal: ' The first was the intercourse 
carried on by those gentlemen with strangers from 
all countries; the second, that, outside Port-Royal 
des Champs, there were lodgings which would 
accommodate two hundred people ; the third, 
that, though the revenue of the monastery was 
but limited, a large community lived there, which 
gave rise to conjectures that the nuns must be 
assisted by their friends ; and the king was afraid 
that those alms might be applied to purposes 
which would not please him.' 

What a fatal conclusion is this from the 
principles of despotism ! Here is a sovereign 
possessing rare gifts, here is the master of 
Europe, on the morrow of the Treaty of 
Nimeguen, occupied with the pious coteries of the 
Faubourg Saint-Jacques, spying into the rela- 
tions between his subjects, waging war against a 
convent where a few of the elect have attracted 
some harmless followers. Certainly the exagge- 
rated vanity which was one of the most con- 
spicuous faults of Louis XIV. was responsible for 
much of this meanness. But I am still more 
struck by the false position of a sovereign com- 
pelled by the principles he represents to stoop to 
such tricks.* Even if Louis XIV. had been free 

I find in the 'Journal inedit' of the Marquis de Torcy, 
recently published by M. Frederic Masson (Paris, 1884), 



442 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



from all personal weakness, circumstances would 
still have made him a theologian. A monarch 
invested with the absolute authority of the State 
must have an opinion on every point and the 
last word on every subject. The atrocious per- 
secution of the Protestants, the severity shown 
to Port-Royal, the ridiculous persistence with 
which the king pressed for Rome's judgment in 
the affair of the Quietists, were deplorable but 
perfectly logical. The principle of State supre- 
macy was pushed to such a point that a popular 
boarding-school had become the rival of royalty 
and a danger to society. 

It is such enormities as these that explain the 
sudden collapse of a brilliant, refined, and en- 
lightened society, which in one day is shattered 
completely and for ever — a collapse unparalleled 
since the days of the Sassanidae.* Superficial 
thinkers have agreed to accept this government as 
an ideal one for France, and those who hold it 

the following account of the opening sittings of one of 
the king's councils (Nov. ioth, 1709), at which some most 
important business was transacted: 'When I began read- 
ing the despatches, the king said that a sort of miracle had 
taken place at Amiens. One of the nuns from Port-Royal 
des Champs . . . had expressed great repentance for her 
obstinacy. . . . She eventually died like a saint in sorrow 
and penitence.' The story which reached the king respecting 
the retractation of the old nun was at least doubtful. Dom 
Clemencet, ' Histoire generale de Port-Royal,' vol. ix., p. 502 
and fol. 

The name of a Persian dynasty, from Sassan, its founder. 
— Translator's Note. 



PORT-ROYAL. 



443 



responsible for the ordeal through which she 
afterwards passed are regarded as cavillers. People 
forget that this government purchased its 
ephemeral greatness at the cost of the future. 
The Revolution only carried on its criminal 
policy : the violent extinction of individual de- 
velopment, the pursuit of a fatal uniformity — in a 
word, the principle that everything which can 
unite men is a crime against the State. The 
remotest generations will reap the fruits of this 
short-sighted policy. All evils can be cured except 
the abnegation of self. Individualities once de- 
stroyed by the State cannot reconstitute them- 
selves ; for the liberties which the State has once 
absorbed it never restores. 

A sad thought haunts us constantly while we 
read this beautiful story so skilfully told by M. 
Sainte-Beuve. These holy men and women who, 
in the midst of the seventeenth century, revived the 
days of antiquity, and made a Thebaid close to 
Versailles — what purpose have they served ? The 
reforms, to carry out which they did violence to 
nature, trampled under foot legitimate instincts, 
defied common-sense, and invited anathemas, 
appear puerile to us. Their ideal of life is not 
ours. We are in favour of the abuses they 
reformed, and Sister Morel, who so long scan- 
dalized the whole establishment by refusing to 
give up her little garden, does not seem very guilty 
in our eyes. Moreover, seeing how they hold 
apart from human life, how unmoved they are by 



444 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



its joys and its sorrows, we miss something in 
them, and their perfection seems to border on 
heartlessness. Le Maitre de Sacy confessing his 
mother on her death-bed, St. Francoise de Chantal 
forsaking her children to follow Francois de Sales, 
Madame de Maintenon stealing daughters from 
their mother for the salvation of their souls, 
appear to us to sin against nature. What purpose, 
then, do the saints serve us ? What purpose did 
the Stoics serve ? What purpose was served by 
all those noble souls in the fading past? What 
purpose was served by those Indian Buddhists, so 
meek that their opponents succeeded in effacing 
every trace of them ? If we held to a narrow 
conception of human life, we could never dispel 
these doubts. The most sublime miracles of 
patience and devotion have been fruitless ; but 
when we understand what duty is, we come to 
believe that in morality the effort is more valuable 
than the result. The result holds good for time 
only ; the effort holds good for eternity. Living 
witnesses to the transcendental nature of man, 
the saints are thus the corner-stone of the world 
and the foundation of our hopes. They make 
immortality necessary ; thanks to them, moral 
despondency and practical scepticism can be 
triumphantly refuted. Sister Marie-Claire, ex- 
claiming ' Victory ! victory !' with her last breath, 
may have been sustained by a faith which is no 
longer ours ; but she proved that man by his will 
creates a force the law of which is not the law of 



PORT-ROYAL. 



445 



the flesh ; she set forth the nature of the spirit by 
an argument superior to all those of Descartes, 
and, in showing us the soul quitting the body as a 
ripe fruit drops from its stalk, she taught us not to 
pronounce too lightly on the limits of its destiny. 

THIRD ESSAY, NOVEMBER 15, 1867. 

During a painful illness courageously borne, 
M. Sainte-Beuve has finished his third edition of 
his ' History of Port- Royal.'* Some years ago, I 
said what I thought of this admirable book, a 
masterpiece of criticism and art, and a model of 
the style in which religious history should be 
written. The right of passing judgment on this 
new edition belongs to a more competent critic, 
one to whom the subject of Port-Royal is a sort 
of inheritance. t It is enough to say, for the 
present, that M. Sainte-Beuve has made valuable 
additions to his work. Some subordinate per- 
sonages have been dealt with more in detail. The 
author has received from the Jansenist Church 
of Holland documents of great interest. From 
amongst the bitter attacks on Port-Royal in the 
recently published ' Memoires ' of Pere Rapin, M. 
Sainte-Beuve has extracted some curious informa- 
tion. M. de Chantelauze has kindly anticipated 
the publication of the work on which he is 
engaged, and communicated to the eminent 

» i Port-Royal/ six volumes, 8vo. Hachette. 
t M. de Sacy. The three essays reproduced here appeared 
in the Journal des Debats. 



446 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



historian a long paper on the relations between 
Cardinal de Retz and the Jansenists, which sets 
that singular ecclesiastic in a new light. The 
account of M. de Pontchateau, received from the 
Jansenists of Utrecht, is extremely interesting ; 
it gives a grand and simple picture of the life and 
death of a saint. The work also contains un- 
published and important information on Nicole, 
Racine, and M. Olicr. 

What M. Sainte-Beuve, with great justice, 
especially insists upon is the national significance 
of Port-Royal and the kind of interest it pos- 
sesses for us. Port-Royal is one of the glories 
of France. It is the best contradiction to those 
who pretend that our country is incapable of 
being serious. Port-Royal was an attempt to 
make France an enlightened, honest, truth-loving 
nation, more anxious to be than to appear as 
Germany and Holland are. Had it succeeded, 
we should have had neither the regency, nor what 
was superficial in the philosophy of the eighteenth 
century, nor the Revolution, nor neo-Catholicism. 
The men of that school were very thorough 
Christians ; they were at least learned and in- 
telligent Christians, and nothing more is required. 
Certainly Tillemont's criticism is narrow and 
timid, but it is perfectly conscientious. If that 
sincere school had continued, it would soon have 
attained complete independence. To derive Chris- 
tian Baur from Le Xain de Tillemont two genera- 
tations of savants are necessary. Freedom of 



PORT-ROYAL. 



447 



thought proceeds either from want of religion or 
from being serious about religion. Respecting 
M. le Tourneux, accused of a tendency to deism, 
M. Sainte-Beuve says : * A Jansenist, far from 
doubting the divinity of Jesus Christ, would 
believe in it doubly.' Assuredly ; but the Jan- 
senist's belief was the result of a serious exercise 
of reason. And the same serious exercise of 
reason may perhaps bring his grandson to believe 
nothing at all. When we profess a dogma in 
consequence of our own reflections, we are not 
far from ceasing to profess it and from avowing 
the change. It is only in politics and matters of 
routine that we never doubt, or rather never avow 
our doubts. The descendants of the Quakers are 
often, in our days, more enlightened Protestants 
than the orthodox flock. An intellectual culture, 
akin to that of German universities, might have 
proceeded from Port-Royal, or rather from the 
mental and moral influence of that great society. 
The result of the Jesuits' teachings was Voltaire. 

I own that to Port-Royal I prefer the French 
Protestant school, such as it became from the 
reign of Henri IV. to the revocation of the Edict 
of Nantes. But that school alienated itself from 
us ; it completely abandoned French traditions ; 
it produced few writers (an unpardonable sin in 
France). Port-Royal, on the contrary, may be 
our model in every respect. First of all, the 
language of the writers of Port-Royal is per- 
fection. It possesses the crowning merit of prose, 



448 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



that which includes all others : it is natural. Its 
sole aim is to express its meaning clearly, without 
making any display. This has raised it above all 
scientific and intellectual revolutions. On the 
deepest subjects we think differently from these 
great prose-writers of the seventeenth century ; 
their ideas in history and philosophy do not satisfy 
us ; but their language is always sufficient. It 
may equally well express thoughts opposed to 
theirs, for its only law is good sense, the love of 
clearness and truth. The qualities which make 
good writers also, strange to say, make saints. 
The capital defect in writing as much as in morals 
is self-love and the desire to shine : forgetfulness 
of self and scorn of consequences are the golden 
rule in all things. 

The method of tuition at Port-Royal is also 
worthy of imitation. Its schools were far superior 
to those of the Jesuits.. Our University, unfortu- 
nately, too faithfully copied the latter with their 
artificial processes, only aiming at college honours; 
their science, which is no training of the intellect, 
but merely a superficial veneer ; their recipes for 
shining in competitive examinations; their scholar- 
ship shut up in note-books and extracts, but never 
bringing the pupil face to face with antiquity. 

Above all, the spirit of the Port-Royalists should 
inspire the few men in France who still protest 
against false taste. We may not share their 
religious convictions ; but w r e should endeavour 
to resemble them in everything except their faith. 



PORT-ROYAL. 



449 



' Do not you see,' some one may reply, ' that this 
is asking for the effect without the cause ? That 
faith was the origin of their strength, their earnest- 
ness, their self-sacrifice.' Alas ! can it be true 
that nothing great or lasting is to be achieved 
without obstinate convictions, narrow ideas, and 
violent prejudices ? Is the free intellect con- 
demned to be powerless in politics, virtue, and 
art ? Do not let us exaggerate. ' Religion 
alone,' says Fontenelle, 'has sometimes made 
wonderful conversions ; but it seldom makes an 
equable and consistent life, unless grafted upon a 
philosophical nature.' In moral force, self-control 
and literary austerity, M. Littre rivals the noblest 
characters of Port-Royal, yet he has not any of 
their faith. In the universities and academies 
of Germany there are Le Nain de Tillemonts 
who do not believe in the supernatural. That ' cir- 
cumcision of heart and mind,' to which M. Sainte- 
Beuve justly points as the essential feature of the 
pious ascetics whose history he has written, is 
more the effect of race and education than of 
this or that abstract symbol. Who now love and 
defend those great men of other days ? We, whom 
they would certainly have looked upon as libertines. 

Let us then thank M. Sainte-Beuve for having 
given us this touching picture of sublime virtues, 
of courageous struggles animated by the love of 
truth. To write a good history of a sect, of a 
school, of a church, one must love it, but one 
must not belong to it. M. Sainte-Beuve fulfils 

29 



45o NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



these conditions. His sympathy for Port-Royal 
is not dogmatic. It leaves his judgment free. 
Among the additions which increase the value 
of this new edition, the finest is perhaps the 
farewell of the author to his heroes. Gibbon 
tells us how, sad he felt when he wrote the last 
lines of his great history in his garden at Lau- 
sanne. One day in the month of August, 1857, 
having just completed his work, the author of 
' Port-Royal ' took up the pen again to write, by 
way of conclusion, the following pages : 

' I have finished this history, begun so long ago, and from 
which, whatever my apparent occupations might be, I have 
never really separated myself — this faithful description of a 
race of holy men. 

'What was my aim ? What have I done ? What have I 
gained ? 

'Young, restless, suffering, prompted by loving curiosity 
to seek for hidden beauty, my chief aim was, at first, by 
penetrating the mystery of these pious souls, of these se- 
cluded lives, to gather the poetry which pervaded them. 
But scarcely had I advanced one step when that poetry 
vanished or gave place to sterner aspects : I saw nothing 
but their religion in all its severity, their Christianity in all 
its bareness. 

' It was impossible for me to enter into that religion except 
as its student and expounder. I pleaded for it before the 
unbelievers and scoffers ; I pleaded on behalf of grace; I 
pleaded on behalf of penitence; I exhibited its lofty side, 
venerable in its austerity, even lovable in its tenderness ; I 
endeavoured to measure its degrees ; I counted the steps of 
Jacob's ladder. This was the limit of my part, this the fruit 
of my labours. 

1 You wise and learned directors, illustrious recluses, right- 
eous confessors and priests, virtuous laymen who also might 



PORT-ROYAL, 



45i 



have been priests but presumed not to aspire to the altar, 
you good men all and true, whatever respect I vowed to you, 
with whatever devotion I studied the least vestige you left 
behind, I could not place myself in your ranks. If you were 
still alive, if you could return to earth, should I throw myself 
at your feet ? I might perhaps visit you once or twice as a 
duty, and also to verify the accuracy of my portraits ; but I 
should not be your disciple. I have been your biographer, 
I dare not say your limner ; in this sense only am I yours. 

' What I should like to think I have done is at least to bring 
others to the point I have myself reached in regard to you, 
that is, to appreciate your virtues and your merits as well as 
your peculiarities, to perceive your greatness and your 
miseries, what is healthy in you and what is unhealthy (for 
you too are not whole) — in a word, through the contemplation 
of your features to kindle and to feel that spark which is 
called divine, though it shines but for a moment, and then 
leaves the mind as free, as serene in its coldness, as impartial 
as before. 

'A still greater advantage might perhaps have been derived 
from intercourse with you, a practical and moral advantage. 
While I studied you, I suffered ; but my suffering had 
nothing elevating in it. I was more engrossed with my 
wounded vanity than with your troubles. I did not imitate 
you. I never dreamed, as you did, of laying at the foot of the 
Cross (which is only the most tangible form of the idea of 
God) the disappointments, nay, the humiliation and injustice 
which I experienced through you and on your account. 

' For all that I have done, I have been and I am but an 
investigator, a sincere, attentive, and exact observer. More- 
over, as I progressed, the charm having vanished, I did 
not wish to be anything else. It seemed to me that in default 
of the poetic flame which illumines but which decoys, there 
could be no more legitimate and honourable employment for 
the mind than to see men and things as they are, and to 
describe them as we see them ; to depict, in the cause of 
science, the varieties of the species, the many forms assumed 
by human nature, as modified by social restrictions and the 
artificial web of doctrine. And what doctrine could be more 

29—2 



452 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



artificial than yours ? You have always talked about truth, 
and have sacrificed everything to what appeared to you to be 
true : in my own way I have also been a man of truth, so far 
as I was able to discern it. 

' But how little is that after all ! How limited is our sight ! 
how soon extinguished ! how like a pale torch kindled for a 
moment in the middle of a boundless night ! And he whose 
heart was most set on knowing his subject, who was most 
ambitious to seize it, who took most pride in portraying it — 
how powerless, how unequal to his task does he feel on the 
day when, as he sees his work almost finished and its fruit 
gathered, his enthusiasm passes off, and is succeeded by that 
loss of strength and of the power of enjoyment which is 
inevitable as the end approaches, when he perceives that he 
too is but one of the most transitory illusions in a world of 
illusion. 

Could better words be found for a sage of the 
gentle school of Ecclesiastes, who, not in sceptical 
bitterness, but from mature experience, used to 
cry unceasingly : ' All is vanity ' ? 



SPINOZA . 



a conference held at the hague, february 
12, 1877, the two hundredth anniversary 
of spinoza's death. 

Your Royal Highness,* Ladies and Gentle- 
men, — On this day two hundred years ago, at about 
this time in the afternoon, and a few yards from 
this spot, there died, at forty-three years of age, a 
poor man whose life had been so profoundly silent 
that his last breath was scarcely heard. He occu- 
pied an out-of-the-way room on the quiet quay of 
Pavilioengracht, in the house of a worthy citizen 
who revered without understanding him. On the 
morning of his death he visited his host and hostess 
as usual. They had been to divine service ; the 
gentle philosopher talked with the good people of 
what the minister had said, approved of his advice, 
and counselled them to follow it. The host and 
hostess (let us name them, gentlemen, for their 
honest sincerity deserves a place in this idyl of the 
Hague, related by Colerus), Van der Spyk and his 
wife, returned to their devotions. When they cam e 

His Royal Highness Prince Alexander of the Netherlands. 



454 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



home their kindly guest was dead. The funeral 
took place on the 25th of February, as though he 
had been a good Christian, in the new church on the 
Spuy. All the neighbours regretted the sage who 
had lived amongst them as one of themselves. 
His hosts cherished his memory, and those who 
had known him always spoke of him with the cus- 
tomary epithet as ' the blessed Spinoza.' 

Anyone able to discern the current of opinion 
among the ' enlightened ' Pharisees of the time, 
would have seen this philosopher, so beloved by 
the simple and the pure of heart, becoming by a 
strange contradiction the bugbear of the narrow 
orthodoxy which pretended to have a monopoly 
of truth. A rogue, a scourge, an imp of Satan, 
the most wicked atheist, a man steeped in crime — 
such, in the opinion of sound theologians and 
philosophers, was the recluse of Pavilioengracht. 
Portraits of him were scattered about, which re- 
presented him as ' bearing on his face the signs 
of reprobation.' A great philosopher, as daring 
as himself, though less consistent and sincere, 
called him ' a wretch.' But justice had its turn. 
When towards the end of the eighteenth century, 
in Germany especially, a more moderate theology 
and a broader philosophy came in vogue, Spinoza 
was hailed as the precursor of a new Gospel. 
Jacobi let the public into the secret of a con- 
versation he had with Lessing, whom he had 
visited in the hope that he would come to his 
assistance against Spinoza. What was his sur- 



SPINOZA. 



455 



prise at finding Lessing an avowed Spinozist ! 
'"Ev xai ctSv,' he said, 'that is the whole of philo- 
sophy.' The man who for a century had been 
called an atheist, Novalis declared ' intoxicated 
with God.' His long-forgotten books are pub- 
lished and eagerly sought for. Schleiermacher, 
Goethe, Hegel, Schelling, proclaim Spinoza the 
father of modern thought. Perhaps there was 
some exaggeration in the first impulse of tardy 
reparation ; but time, which puts all things in 
their right places, has confirmed Lessing's verdict, 
and to-day all enlightened thinkers admit that 
Spinoza had more spiritual insight than any of his 
contemporaries. It is in that belief, gentlemen, 
that you have assembled to do honour to a humble 
grave. It is the common affirmation of an un- 
fettered faith in the infinite which to-day unites, 
on the very spot which witnessed so much virtue, 
the choicest assemblage which could gather round 
the tomb of a man of genius. A sovereign, as dis- 
tinguished by the gifts of her mind as by the 
qualities of her heart, is with us in spirit. A 
prince, capable of appreciating every kind of merit, 
testifies by his presence, which adds special eclat 
to this solemnity, that none of Holland's glories 
are indifferent to him, and that no thought, how- 
ever lofty, can escape his enlightened judgment, 
his philosophic admiration. 



456 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



I. 

The illustrious Baruch Spinoza was born at 
Amsterdam at the time when your republic reached 
the climax of its glory and power. He belonged 
to that great race which, by the influence it has 
exercised and the services it has rendered, occupies 
so exceptional a place in the history of civilization. 
A miracle in its own way, the development of the 
Jewish people takes its place side by side with that 
other miracle, the development of the Greek mind; 
for if Greece was the first to realize the ideal of 
poetry, of science, of philosophy, of art, of secular 
life (if I may so express myself), the Jewish 
people created the religion of mankind. Its 
prophets inaugurated the idea of justice, and 
vindicated the rights of the weak, a vindication 
all the harder for them, because, having no idea 
of a future state, they dreamed of the realisation 
of their ideal upon this earth and in a near 
future. A Jew — Isaiah — 750 years before Christ, 
dared to say that sacrifices availed nothing, and 
that purity of heart was alone important. Then, 
when the course of events has utterly destroyed 
those bright visions, Israel effects a change of 
front without parallel. Transferring to the pro- 
vince of pure idealism that kingdom of God 
never to be established on earth, one half of 
his sons founded Christianity, while the other 
half, amidst the stakes and faggots of the Middle 
Ages, imperturbably repeated, ' Hear, O Israel I 



SPINOZA. 



457 



Jehovah, thy God, is the only God ; holy is His 
name.' This potent tradition of idealism, of 
hoping against hope, this was the healthy and 
bracing atmosphere in which Spinoza was brought 
up. His education was at first exclusively Jewish. 
The literature of Israel was his first and in truth 
his constant mistress, the subject of his medita- 
tion all his life long. 

As is usually the case, Hebrew literature, when 
it took the character of a sacred book, became the 
subject of a conventional exegesis, whose object 
was less to interpret ancient texts according to the 
meaning of their authors than to adapt them to 
the moral and religious wants of the times. The 
penetrating mind of the young Spinoza soon saw 
the defects in the exegesis of the synagogues. The 
Bible as it was taught to him was disfigured by the 
accumulated errors of more than two thousand 
years. He resolved to pierce through them. At 
heart he was in accord with the true fathers of 
Judaism, especially the great Maimonides,* who 

° Maimonides (Moses ben Maimoun, in Arabic, Abou 
Amran Monca ben Maimoun ben Obeidallah), a Jewish 
philosopher born at Cordova, 30th March, 1 1 35, died in 1204. 
According to some authorities, he was a pupil of Averrhoes 
(Ibn Roschd). By way of distinction he has been called 
' The Doctor,' and ' The Eagle of the Doctors.' He was a 
skilful linguist and physician. Saladin, Sultan of Egypt, 
appointed him his physician. Albert and Thomas Aquinas 
were his disciples. His chief works are a ' Commentary on 
the Mishna,' in Arabic ; a ' Compendium of the Talmud, ' Jad 
Chazekeh,' or the ' Strong Hand ;' ' More Nevochim,' or 



458 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



had leavened Judaism with the strongest and 
boldest philosophy. With marvellous sagacity 
he foresaw the great critical exegesis which, a 
hundred and twenty-five years later, was to ac- 
quaint the world with the finest productions of 
Hebrew genius. Was that destroying the Bible? 
Has that invaluable book lost anything by being 
seen as it is, instead of being banished beyond the 
pale of the common laws of humanity ? Certainly 
not. The truths which science reveals always 
surpass the dreams which it destroys. Laplace's 
world is more beautiful than that of a Cosmas 
Indicopleustes,* representing the universe as a 
box, on the lid of which the stars move in grooves 
at a few leagues' distance from us. In like manner 



' Guide of the Perplexed ;' a Compendium of the works of 
Galen ; a Commentary upon the Aphorisms of Hippocrates 
(two Hebrew MSS. of which are preserved in the Bodleian 
Library at Oxford, and in that of the Vatican), etc. — Trans- 
lator's Note. 

* Cosmas, an Egyptian merchant living in the sixth 
century of the Christian era : having made several voyages 
to India, he acquired the surname of ' Indicopleustes ' (the 
Indian navigator). He wrote several works, amongst them 
a ' Description of the Earth/ now lost, ' Astronomical Tables/ 
and a ' Christian Topography.' The only work of his which 
has reached us is his ' Christian Topography/ in Greek, con- 
taining curious details relative to India and Ceylon. In it 
the author, in the name of the Bible, denies the sphericity of 
the earth, which he asserts to be an oblong plane 12,000 miles 
in length from east to west, and 6,000 in breadth from north 
to south, surrounded by high walls, covered by the firma- 
ment as with a canopy or vault. — Translator's Note. 



SPINOZA. 



459 



the Bible is more beautiful when we trace in it, 
on a background of a thousand years, every sigh, 
every aspiration, every prayer of the most pro- 
foundly religious minds the world has ever known, 
than when we force ourselves to regard it as a 
book unlike any other book, written, preserved, 
and interpreted in defiance of all the ordinary 
rules of the human mind. 

But mediaeval persecutions had their usual 
results. The Jewish mind grew narrow and timid. 
Some years before, at Amsterdam, the unfortu- 
nate Uriel Acosta was cruelly punished for doubts 
which fanaticism deemed as criminal as avowed 
infidelity. The audacity of the young Spinoza 
met with an even worse reception. He was 
anathematized and excommunicated. A very old 
story this, gentlemen ! Religious communities, 
beneficent cradles of so much piety and virtue, 
cannot endure any attempt to pass beyond their 
bounds ; they would imprison for ever the life 
whose beginnings they have sheltered ; they regard 
as apostasy the natural effort of the new-fledged 
spirit to fly alone. It is like the egg accusing of 
ingratitude the bird that has escaped from it. 
The egg is necessary for a time ; then it becomes 
a hindrance and must be broken. Marvellous 
indeed that Erasmus should have felt cramped 
in his cell, that Luther should not have preferred 
his monastic vows to the more holy vow which 
binds every man to follow truth ! Had Erasmus 
persisted in his monastic routine, or Luther con- 



460 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



tinued to distribute ' indulgences,' they would 
indeed have been apostates. Spinoza was the 
greatest of modern Jews, and Judaism exiled 
him ; so it had to be ; so it always will be. 
Finite symbols, prisons of the infinite spirit, 
protest eternally against the efforts of idealism 
to enlarge them. The spirit on its side struggles 
eternally for air and light. Eighteen hundred 
and fifty years ago Judaism denounced as a false 
guide him who would have made Judaism the 
first religion of the world. And the Christian 
Church, how often has not she expelled from her 
bosom those children who would have done her 
most honour ! In such cases we have amply 
done our duty, gentlemen, if we gratefully re- 
member the education we received in our infancy. 
The old churches are at liberty to call those who 
leave them sacrilegious ; they will obtain from us 
no sentiment but gratitude ; for, after all, the 
harm they can do to us is nothing compared to 
the good they have done to us. 

II. 

Behold, then, the excommunicated of the 
Amsterdam synagogue obliged to build himself a 
spiritual abode outside the house which has ex- 
pelled him ! He had great sympathy with Chris- 
tianity ; but he had learnt to dread all chains, and 
did not embrace it. The enlightened rationalism 
of Descartes had revived philosophy ; Descartes 
was Spinoza's master ; he took up the problems 



SPINOZA. 



of the age where that great genius had left them ; 
he saw that fear of the Sorbonne had made 
Descartes' theology hard and dry. When Olden- 
burg asked what fault he found with Descartes' 
and Bacon's philosophy, Spinoza said their chief 
defect was that they did not sufficiently consider 
the First Cause. Perhaps his reminiscences of 
Jewish theology, that ancient wisdom of the 
Hebrews for which he often shows his reverence, 
gave him higher views and loftier aspirations. No 
conception of the Deity seemed to him adequate 
■ — neither that held by the people nor that formed 
in the schools. He saw that the infinite could 
not be limited ; that divinity must be all or 
nothing ; that if it were really anything, it must 
pervade everything. For twenty years he pon- 
dered over those problems. Our dislike of 
abstract systems prevents our accepting unre- 
servedly the propositions in which he believed he 
had formulated the secrets of the infinite. To 
Spinoza as to Descartes the universe was nothing 
but extension and thought ; chemistry and physio- 
logy were wanting to that great school, too ex- 
clusively geometrical and mechanical. Unac- 
quainted with the ideas of life and of the con- 
stitution of bodies revealed by chemistry, and 
still too much attached to the scholastic expres- 
sions substance and attribute, Spinoza had no vision 
of that living and fruitful infinite which the 
science of nature and of history shows us direct- 
ing in boundless space a constantly progressive 



462 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



development. Yet, apart from some crudity of 
expression, what grandeur there is in that in- 
flexible geometrical deduction, resulting in the 
conclusion : ' It is in the nature of substance to 
develop itself necessarily through an infinity of 
infinite attributes, infinitely modified'! God is 
thus absolute thought, the universal conscious- 
ness. The ideal exists ; nay, it is the only true 
existence ; all else is illusion. Bodies and souls 
are pure modes, whose substance is God ; modes 
alone are in time ; substance is eternal. On this 
theory, God has not to be proved — His existence 
follows from His idea : everything involves and 
presupposes Him. God is the condition of all 
existence, of every thought. If God did not exist, 
thought could conceive more than nature could 
supply, which is a contradiction. 

Spinoza did not clearly grasp universal pro- 
gress ; the world, as he conceived it, appears 
crystallized in a matter which is indestructible 
space, in a soul which is immutable thought ; 
exclusive contemplation of the divine unfits him 
for comprehending the human : lost in infinity, 
he did not sufficiently discern the divinity which 
is hidden under temporal manifestations : but no 
one has so clearly seen the eternal identity which 
serves as the basis of all transitory evolution. 
Everything limited seemed to him frivolous and 
unworthy of a philosopher's attention. In his 
daring flight, he attained the lofty snow-clad 
mountain-tops, without one glance at the richly 



SPINOZA. 



463 



blooming vales below. On those heights where any 
other lungs than his would be suffocated, he lives, 
he enjoys : there he breathes freely as the generality 
of men do in the milder climate of temperate 
regions. He delights in the sharp and bracing 
air of the glacier. He asks no one to follow him 
there ; he is like Moses, to whom holy mysteries 
were unveiled on the mountain. But believe me, 
gentlemen, he was the seer of his age — the man 
who had the deepest and keenest perception of 
God. 

III. 

Isolated on those snowy summits, he must have 
been astray in human affairs, an optimist or a 
scornful sceptic ? No such thing, gentlemen. He 
was constantly occupied in applying his principles 
to human societies. The pessimism of Hobbes 
and the dreams of Thomas More were equally 
repugnant to him. One half at least of the Trac- 
tatus theologico-politiciis, published in 1670, might 
be reprinted to-day without losing any of its per- 
tinence. Listen to the admirable title : ' Trac- 
tatus theologico-politicus, continens dissertationes 
aliquot quibus ostenditur libertatem philosophandi 
non tantum salva pietate et reipublicse pace posse 
concedi sed eamdem nisi cum pace reipublicse 
ipsaque pietate coli non posse.' For centuries 
people had believed that society was based on 
metaphysical dogmas ; but Spinoza saw that the 
dogmas believed to be indispensable to humanity 



464 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



could not escape discussion ; and that revelation 
itself, if there be a revelation, having reached us 
through human channels, must be equally open to 
criticism. I wish I could quote the whole of that 
admirable twentieth chapter, in which the great 
writer, with magisterial dignity, enunciates the 
dogma, unknown then and disputed still, which is 
called liberty of conscience : ' The ultimate pur- 
pose of the State,' he says, * is not to rule men, to 
keep them in fear, to subject them to the will of 
others, but, on the contrary, to allow each as far 
as possible to live in security, that is, to preserve 
for each his natural right to live without harm to 
himself or to his neighbour. No, I repeat, the 
object of the State is not to transform reasonable 
beings into animals or automata ; its object is to 
enable the citizens to develop in security their 
bodies and their minds, freely to employ their 
reason. The true end of the State therefore is 
liberty. . . . Whoever respects the sovereign's 
rights must not act against his decrees ; yet 
everybody has a right to think what he likes, and 
to say what he thinks, provided that he confines 
himself to speaking and teaching in the name of 
reason alone, and does not introduce innovations 
into the State on his own private authority. For 
instance, a citizen proves that a law is opposed to 
sound reason and thinks that it ought therefore to 
be rescinded ; if he submits his opinion to the 
judgment of the sovereign — to whom alone belongs 
the right of making and abolishing laws — and if 



SPINOZA. 



465 



in the meantime he does not break the law, he 
certainly acts like a good citizen and deserves 
well of the State. . . . 

' . . . Even if it be possible to enslave men 
to such an extent that they dare not utter a 
word without the approbation of their sovereign, 
nothing can control their thoughts. What then 
will follow ? Men will think one way and speak 
another. Good faith, so essential to a State, will 
decay ; adulation and perfidy will flourish, to the 
destruction of all good and healthy habits. . . . 
What can be more fatal to a State than to exile 
honest citizens because they do not hold the 
opinions of the crowd and know not how to dis- 
semble ? What can be more fatal than to destroy 
as enemies men whose only crime is independence 
of thought ? Then the scaffold, which should be 
the terror of the wicked, becomes the glorious 
theatre where tolerance and virtue shine out in all 
their brightness and in the sight of all men cover 
the sovereign majesty with disgrace. Truly that 
spectacle can only teach us either to imitate those 
noble martyrs, or, if we fear death, to become the 
abject flatterers of the great. Nothing, therefore, 
can be so dangerous as to make divine right the 
arbitrator of pure speculation, and to impose laws 
upon opinions which are or may be the subject of 
discussion among men. If the right of the State 
were limited to the control of acts and speech 
were left free, controversies would not so often 
turn into conspiracies.' 

30 



466 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



Wiser than many so-called practical men, our 
speculator sees that reasonable governments alone 
are durable, and tolerant governments alone are 
reasonable. Far from absorbing the individual 
in the State, he would create solid guarantees 
against its omnipotence. He is not a revolutionist, 
he is a moderate ; he transforms, he explains, he 
does not destroy. His God is not one of those 
who delight in ceremonies, in sacrifices, in the 
smell of incense : and yet Spinoza in nowise 
wishes to overthrow religion ; he has a profound 
and tender veneration for Christianity. The 
supernatural is meaningless to him ; according to 
his principles, anything beyond nature would be 
be yond existence, and consequently could not be 
conceived ; prophets were men like other men. 
' To believe,' he says, ' that prophets had human 
bodies and not human souls, and that conse- 
quently their knowledge and their sensations were 
different from ours, is not to think, it is to dream.' 
Prophecy was not the monopoly of one nation, of 
the Jewish people. To be the Son of God was 
not. the privilege of one man. ' . . . To speak 
plainly, it is not absolutely necessary for salvation 
to know Christ according to the flesh ; but it is 
quite a different matter if we speak of the Son 
of God, that is, of that eternal wisdom of God, 
manifested in all things, but especially in the 
human soul, and above all in Jesus Christ. 
Without that wisdom none can ever attain to 
beatitude, since it alone teaches us what is true 



SPINOZA. 



467 



or false, good or evil. ... As to the teach- 
ings of certain Churches, I have expressly said 
that I do not know what they mean, and I 
confess they seem to me to use the same sort of 
language as one who should maintain that a circle 
had put on the nature of a square.' Has Schleier- 
macher spoken differently ? And is not Spinoza, 
who, with Richard Simon, was the founder of the 
Biblical exegesis of the Old Testament, also the 
precursor of the liberal theologians who in our day 
have shown that Christianity can preserve all its 
influence without the supernatural? His letters 
to Oldenburg on the resurrection and the way in 
which St. Paul understood it, are masterpieces 
which, a hundred and fifty years later, would have 
been looked upon as the manifesto of a whole 
school of critical theology. 

It matters little in Spinoza's eyes how we 
interpret miracles, provided we understand them 
in a pious sense ; the only aim of religion is piety ; 
we must ask from religion a rule of life, not meta- 
physics. The Scriptures, like all other revelations, 
are summed up in one precept, ' Love your neigh- 
bour.' The fruit of religion is beatitude; every- 
body shares it in proportion to his capacity 
and his efforts. Minds ruled by reason, philo- 
sophic minds, which even in this world live in 
God, are beyond the reach of death ; what death 
deprives them of is worthless; but weak or passion- 
ate minds perish almost entirely, and death, in- 
stead of being a mere accident, goes to the very 

30—2 



468 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



root of their being. . . The ignorant man, swayed 
by blind passion, is agitated in a thousand ways 
by outward causes, and never enjoys true peace 
of mind ; for him to cease to suffer is to cease 
to exist. The soul of the sage on the contrary 
can scarcely be disturbed. Having, by a kind of 
eternal necessity, the consciousness of himself, of 
God, and of the world, he never ceases to exist, 
and always preserves true peace of mind. 

Spinoza could not bear people to consider his 
speculations irreligious or subversive. The timid 
Oldenburg admitted that some of his opinions 
were supposed to be dangerous. ' All that is con- 
sistent with reason,' answered Spinoza/ I believe 
to be helpful to the practice of virtue.' The 
alleged superiority of fixed ideas on religion and 
the future life found him intractable. ' Is it reject- 
ing religion,' he asked, ' to acknowledge God as 
the supreme good, and to think that we ought 
to love Him as such with a free heart ? To main- 
tain that our freedom and happiness consist in 
that love ; that the prize of virtue is virtue itself, 
and that a weak and blind mind finds its punish- 
ment in its blindness — is that abjuring religion ?' 
The attacks on Spinoza were prompted, he thought, 
by very unworthy feelings. Those who inveighed 
against disinterested religion showed that they had 
no real love for reason and virtue, and were only 
prevented by fear from indulging all their pas- 
sions. 'Thus,' he adds, 'they abstain from evil 
and do good reluctantly, like slaves, and as the 



SPINOZA. 



469 



wages of their slavery they expect from God re- 
wards which have infinitely more value in their 
eyes than the Divine love. The more unpleasant 
it is to them to be virtuous, the more they expect 
to be rewarded for it, and they fancy that all who 
are not restrained by the same fear as themselves 
live as they would like to do — that is to say, law- 
lessly/ It seemed to him unreasonable to expect 
to go to heaven for doing what was worthy of 
hell, and absurd to expect to please God by avow- 
ing that if we were not afraid of Him we should 
not love Him. 

IV. 

He saw the danger of interfering with beliefs 
in which few persons admit these subtle dis- 
tinctions. Caute was his favourite maxim. His 
friends having made him understand that an 
explosion would follow the appearance of his 
' Ethics,' he kept it unpublished until his death. 
He had no literary vanity, and did not court 
fame, perhaps because he was sure it would 
come to him unsought. He was perfectly happy ; 
he has told us so, and we may take his word. 
And he has done even better ; he has given us 
his secret. Listen, gentlemen, listen to the 
recipe of the ' prince of atheists ' for securing 
happiness. It is to love God. To love God is 
to live in Him. Life in God is the best and the 
most perfect, because it is the most reasonable, 



47o NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



the happiest, the richest ; in a word, because it 
gives us a fuller existence than any other life, 
and more completely satisfies our essential needs. 

Spinoza's life was entirely regulated by these 
maxims. That life was a masterpiece of good 
sense and judgment. It was governed by the 
wisdom of the sage who only wants one thing, 
and always obtains it at last. No politician ever 
adapted means to ends more skilfully. Had he 
been less cautious, he would perhaps have in- 
curred the same fate as the unfortunate Acosta. 
Loving truth for itself, he was indifferent to 
all the insults brought upon him by speaking 
it ; he never replied a word to the attacks made 
upon him. He never attacked anyone. ' It is 
not my habit,' he used to say, ' to try to detect 
the errors of other people.' Had he wished to 
hold any office he would no doubt have been 
persecuted, or at least calumniated. He was 
nothing, and he wished to be nothing. ' Ama 
nesciri,' was his motto, as it was that of the 
author of the ' Imitation.' He sacrificed every- 
thing to his wish to be undisturbed in his medita- 
tions ; and in this he was not selfish, for his thoughts 
were important to us all. He several times re- 
fused to be made rich, and was satisfied with the 
necessaries of life. The King of France offered 
him a pension : he declined it. The Elector 
Palatine offered him a Chair at Heidelberg : 
' Your freedom will be complete,' he was told, 
' for the prince is convinced that you will not 



SPINOZA. 



47i 



take advantage of it to disturb the established 
religion.' ' I do not quite understand,' he replied, 
i how far the freedom of thought which you are 
so good as to promise me will be limited by the 
condition that the established religion is not to 
be disturbed ; besides, my being engaged in teach- 
ing the young would be a bar to my own progress 
in philosophy. I have secured a quiet life only 
by giving up all public tuition.' He felt that his 
work was to think : he was indeed thinking for 
mankind, whose ideas he anticipated by more 
than a century. 

He showed the same instinctive ability in all the 
relations of life ; he knew that public opinion 
never allows a man two kinds of liberty at one 
time ; being a freethinker, he considered himself 
bound to live as a saint. But I should not have 
said this. Was not that meek and pure life rather 
the direct expression of his untroubled conscience? 
Atheists used to be considered in those days as 
assassins armed with daggers. Spinoza was always 
gentle, humble, and pious. His opponents ob- 
jected to this ; they would have had him conform 
to the established type, and after living like an 
incarnate demon, come to a suitable end. Spinoza 
smiled at that curious demand, and refused to 
change his conduct to oblige his enemies. 

He made excellent friends, was brave when 
necessary, and protested against popular outbreaks 
whenever he thought them unjust. Repeated 
disappointments did not shake his faith in the 



472 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



republican party ; his principles were not at the 
mercy of events. Perhaps what did him most 
honour was the sincere esteem and affection of the 
simple beings with whom he lived. The esteem of 
the humble is priceless, gentlemen ; their judgment 
is nearly always that of God Himself. The worthy 
Van der Spyks evidently considered Spinoza an 
ideal lodger. ' No one ever gave less trouble,' they 
told Colerus, some years after his death. ' When 
at home he never interfered with anyone ; most of 
his time he spent quietly in his room. When 
tired of study, he would come down and join in 
our conversation, even about trifles.' There never 
was a more agreeable neighbour. He often used 
to chat with his hostess, and also with the other 
lodgers, especially if they were ill or in trouble. 
He used to tell the children to go to divine ser- 
vice, and when they came back would ask what they 
could remember of the sermon. He nearly always 
endorsed the advice of the preacher. Among 
those whom he most esteemed was the pastor 
Cordes, an excellent man, who explained the Scrip- 
tures well. Spinoza sometimes went to hear him, 
and urged his host never to miss the preaching of 
so able a minister. One day his hostess asked him 
whether she might hope for salvation in the religion 
she professed. ' Your religion is good,' he replied ; 
* do not look for another, or doubt that you will 
be saved if you are good as well as pious.' 

He was wonderfully self-denying and economi- 
cal. He supplied his daily wants by the labour 



SPINOZA. 



473 



of his hands, — by polishing spectacle - glasses, 
at which he was an adept. The Van der Spyks 
gave Colerus some scraps of paper on which he 
had put down his expenses ; they amounted on 
an average to about twopence half-penny a day. 
He used to balance his accounts carefully every 
quarter, in order to spend neither more nor 
less than he had. His dress was simple, almost 
shabby, but his aspect and manner were tranquil 
and easy. He had evidently found a system which 
gave him perfect contentment. 

He never was either sad or merry, and the even- 
ness of his temper was marvellous. He perhaps 
felt some little disappointment when the daughter 
of his teacher Van den Ende preferred Kerkering 
to him, but I imagine that he soon consoled himself. 
' Reason is my only enjoyment,' he said, ' and joy 
and peace is what I aim at in this life.' He never 
could bear to hear anyone commend sadness. ' It 
is superstition,' he said, 'that makes sadness a good 
and every source of joy an evil. God would be a 
spiteful being if He rejoiced in my weakness and 
suffering. The truth is that the greater joy we 
feel the greater perfection do we attain, the more 
fully do we partake of the divine nature. . . . Joy, 
then, can never be evil so long as it is in accord- 
ance with the true purpose of our existence. The 
virtuous life is not a sad and gloomy life, a life of 
privations and austerities. How could God take 
pleasure in the sight of my weakness, or reckon 
to my credit the tears, sobs, and terrors which are 



474 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



the signs of a feeble soul ? Yes,' he added vehe- 
mently, 1 it is wise to use the good things of this 
life and enjoy them as much as possible, to re- 
cruit our strength moderately with pleasant food, 
to charm our senses with the colour and perfume 
of flowers, even to adorn our garments, to delight 
in music, games, spectacles, and every kind of 
innocent amusement.' People are always talking 
about repentance, humility, death ; but repent- 
ance is not a virtue, it is the consequence of sin ; 
humility is not a virtue either, since it arises from 
a consciousness of inferiority. As for the thought 
of death, it is the child of fear, and its favourite 
dwelling-place is a feeble mind. 1 Of all things in 
the world,' he said, ' that on which a free man 
thinks least is death. Wisdom is meditation, not 
on death, but on life.' 

V. 

Since the time of Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius, 
there has been no life so profoundly penetrated 
with the sense of the divine as that of Spinoza. 
In the twelfth, the thirteenth, and the sixteenth 
centuries, rationalist philosophy boasted some 
very great men ; but it had no saint. There was 
often something hard and repulsive in the finest 
characters among the leaders of Italian thought. 
There was no religion in those lives which re- 
belled against divine as well as human laws, and 
whose last example was poor Vanini. With 



SPINOZA. 



475 



Spinoza, freedom of thought as a form of piety 
is the product of religion. Religion in his system 
is not merely a part of life, but life itself. What 
is important is not to acquire some more or less 
correct metaphysical phrase, but to give life a 
pole-star, a supreme direction, an ideal. 

It was thus, gentlemen, that your illustrious 
countryman raised a standard capable, even now, 
of sheltering all who think and feel nobly. Yes, 
religion is eternal; it answers to the most pressing 
need of primitive as well as of cultured men ; it 
can only perish with mankind itself, or rather its 
disappearance would prove that man had so 
degenerated as to be about to revert to the animal 
from which he sprang. And yet no dogma, no 
form of worship, no formula can in these days be 
adequate to the religious sentiment. These two 
apparently contradictory assertions must be 
maintained each against the other. Woe to those 
who pretend that religion has had its day ! Woe 
to those who imagine that they can impart to 
symbols, which the world has outgrown, the au- 
thority they possessed when they were rooted in 
the unassailable dogmatism of the past ! We 
must renounce that dogmatism now ; we must 
renounce those fixed creeds which gave rise to 
so much strife and agony, but also to such ardent 
faith. We must renounce the idea that it de- 
pends on us to maintain in others beliefs which 
we no longer share. Spinoza did well to detest 
hypocrisy ; hypocrisy is cowardly and dishonest ; 



476 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



but above all it is useless. The persistence of the 
higher classes in parading before the uneducated 
masses the religious rites of former days, can only 
have one result : it will destroy their authority in 
critical times, when it is of the first importance 
that there should be some men in whose wisdom 
and virtue the people can still confide. 

Honour, then, to Spinoza, who dared to say : 
'Reason before everything!' Reason cannot be 
contrary to the true interests of mankind. But let 
us remind the impatient and unreflecting, that to 
Spinoza religious revolutions were only a change 
of formulas. To him the substance remained the 
same though expressed in other terms. If, on the 
one hand, he energetically disclaimed the theocratic 
power of a priesthood distinct from civil society, 
and the tendency of the State to meddle with 
metaphysics, on the other hand, he never rejected 
either State or Religion. He wished the State to 
be tolerant, and Religion to be free. We ask no 
more for ourselves. We cannot impose on others 
beliefs which we do not hold. When the believers 
of other days persecuted, their action was tyran- 
nical, but at least it was consistent : for us now-a- 
days to do as they did would be simply absurd. 
Our religion is a sentiment susceptible of taking 
many forms. These forms are far from being of 
equal value, yet none of them has power or au- 
thority to banish the others. Liberty was the 
last word of Spinoza's religious policy. Let it be 
the last word of ours ! It is the most honest 



SPINOZA. 



477 



course, and also perhaps the safest and most 
effectual for the progress of civilization. 

Mankind certainly advances on the path of 
progress with very uneven steps. The rude and 
violent Esau grows impatient at the slow move- 
ments of Jacob's flock. We must give everything 
its time. We certainly must not allow prejudice 
and ignorance to shackle the free action of the 
mind; but on the other hand we must not hurry 
the slow progress of more sluggish spirits. Some 
must be free to be foolish in order that others 
may be free to be wise. Spiritual development 
cannot by assisted by force. It is natural enough 
that those who have no genuine care for truth 
should compel outward submission. But how can 
we, who believe that truth is something real and 
supremely valuable, dream of compelling an ad- 
hesion which is worthless when it is not the 
fruit of free conviction ? We no longer admit 
sacramental formulas, acting of themselves inde- 
pendently of the state of mind of the person to 
whom they apply. To us a belief has no value 
unless the individual has won it by his own re- 
flection, unless he has grasped and assimilated it. 
Conviction by word of command is as nonsensical 
as love taken by force or sympathy made to 
order. Let us bind ourselves, gentlemen, always 
to defend our own liberty, and also, if need be, 
to defend the liberty of those who did not always 
respect ours, and who, if they had the power, 
would probably not respect it now. 



478 NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



It was Holland, gentlemen, which, more than 
two hundred years ago, had the glory of demon- 
strating the feasibility of these theories by putting 
them into practice. ' Is it,' asked Spinoza, ' neces- 
sary to prove that freedom of thought has no bad 
results, but teaches men most widely divided in 
opinion to respect each other's rights ? Instances 
abound, and we have not far to look for them. 
See Amsterdam, whose growth, admired by other 
nations, is the result of that freedom. Men of all 
countries and creeds live in perfect concord in 
that flourishing republic, that renowned city . . . 
and no sect, however odious, is refused protection 
by its magistrates, provided it does not trespass 
on the rights of others.' Descartes was of the 
same opinion when he sought in your country 
the tranquillity necessary for his studies. Thus, 
thanks to that noble privilege of freedom which 
your forefathers gloriously achieved, your Holland 
became the asylum where, shielded from the 
tyrannies which were devastating Europe, the 
spirit of man found air to breathe, a public to 
understand it, and organs through which to mul- 
tiply its voice, which elsewhere was silenced. 

Great, no doubt, are the sufferings of our cen- 
tury, and cruel its perplexities. It is never safe 
to raise so many problems before possessing the 
necessary elements for solving them. It was not 
we who shattered that aerial paradise whose 
crystal walls reflected silvery and azure rays which 
inspired and comforted so many longing eyes. 



SPINOZA. 



479 



But it lies in ruins ; what is broken is broken, and 
no thoughtful mind will undertake the idle task of 
bringing back the ignorance that has been dis- 
pelled or restoring the lost illusions. Almost every- 
where the inhabitants of large towns have given 
up faith in the supernatural ; even if we sacrificed 
our own convictions and our sincerity, we could not 
induce them to return to it. But the supernatural, 
as it was formerly understood, is not the ideal. The 
cause of the supernatural is lost. The cause of 
the ideal has suffered no reverse ; it never will. 
The ideal is the soul of the world, the permanent 
God, the primordial, efficient and final cause of 
this universe. Here we have the foundation of 
the religion which can never die. We have no 
more need of miracles or selfish prayers to lead 
us to worship God than Spinoza had. So long 
as there is a fibre in the human heart to thrill 
in response to all that is just and honourable, 
so long as the soul that has the instinct of right 
prefers virtue to life, so long as there are friends 
of truth who will sacrifice repose to science ; 
friends of the public good who will devote them- 
selves to the useful and saintly works of mercy, 
womanly hearts to love all that is good and 
beautiful and pure, and artists to express it in 
inspired sounds, colours, and words, so long will 
God live in us. Only if selfishness, baseness of 
heart, narrowness of mind, indifference to science, 
contempt for the rights of man, forgetfulness of 
all that is grand and noble, were to dominate this 



4 8o NEW STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. 



world, would God cease to dwell in man. But 
far from us be such thoughts. Our aspirations, 
our sufferings, even our faults and our rash- 
ness, are proofs that the ideal lives in us. 
Yes, human life is still divine. Our apparent 
negations are often but the scruples of timorous 
minds who fear to go beyond what they know. 
They are a more worthy tribute to the Deity 
than the hypocritical worship of the formalist. 
God is still in us, gentlemen ; God is in us. 
Est Deus in nobis. 

Let us all do homage, gentlemen, to the great 
and illustrious thinker who, two hundred years 
ago, showed as no else had shown, by the example 
of his life, and by the pov/er of his writings, which 
time has not yet abated, that such thoughts 
abound in spiritual joy and holy unction. Let us 
with Schleiermacher offer the best we are capable 
of as an oblation to the manes of the saintly and 
misrepresented Spinoza. ' The sublime spirit of 
the universe had penetrated him ; the infinite was 
his beginning and his end, the universal was the 
object of his one and lifelong passion. Living in 
holy innocence and profound humility, he saw in 
the imperishable world the reflection of himself, 
and knew that he also was a worthy mirror for 
the world ; he was filled with religion, and filled 
with the Holy Ghost ; he appears to us unique and 
unequalled, a master of his craft, but raised above 
the common level, without disciples and without 
the freedom of any city.' 



SPINOZA. 



That freedom you are about to confer upon him, 
gentlemen. The monument you raise to his 
memory will be the link uniting his genius and 
this earth. His soul will hover, like a tutelary 
genius, above the spot where he accomplished his 
short earthly pilgrimage. Woe to any passer-by 
who should insult that meek and thoughtful 
figure ! He would be punished, as base minds 
always are, by his own baseness, and his inability 
to comprehend the divine. From his granite 
pedestal Spinoza will teach us all to follow the 
path which led him to happiness, and, centuries 
hence, men of culture, crossing the Pavilioen- 
gracht, will say to themselves : 1 It is perhaps from 
this spot that God was most clearly seen.' 

May the memory of this fete be to all of us a 
consolatory and a cherished recollection ! 



THE END. 



BILLING AND SONS, PRINTERS, GUILDFORD. 

C, C. &> Co. 



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